Even yet Joshua Thorn could remember that first emotion shared by himself and Streeter after the effects of the four-G blast-off had worn away, after the tension of establishing orbit was eased, the first report made to Home Plate, and they were at last granted a moment's rest, a moment's respite to look back, to realize....
Done it. Done it.... They had done it!
They could almost see themselves, the National Emblem emblazoned brilliantly on their chalk-white metal skin, riding in dignified, silent triumph over all of the Earth. Now let anybody—anybody, anybody anywhere (for weren't they above all of anywhere?) shake a fist, rattle a sabre!
First Men in Space. Like God, somehow....
They thudded each other on the back, they yelled things they could not remember, they let the tears flood down their cheeks without noticing, and they laughed; they laughed long and loudly with words and wordlessly, and then they watched again, watched mighty Earth below them turning by some power that was not theirs to see on an invisible spit over Infinity.
It was at the end of the fourth month that Streeter died.
"Josh? Josh what's our trouble?" Young, earnest. Wiry and pink-cheeked and an eternal glint of excitement in his light blue eyes.
Thorn kept studying the instruments as he answered, slowly, and without alarm in his voice. It wasn't much, but the bunching of his thick eyebrows had given him away. It always did.
"Port reflector's all, I guess, Johnny. Been watching it; a hair off, so we're down just enough BTU's to make a dent in power supply. Must have come out a little cockeyed when we popped it. Want to watch the panel a few minutes while I—"