If it worked . . . Of course it would work! He sought reassurance from Gee-Gee.
"It's going to be okay, isn't it?"
"Yes." Gee-Gee had no doubt. "Every piece of it has been checked and double-checked. Even the inner workings of the critical parts have been run and rerun. This is one rocket the Earthman never had a chance to sabotage."
Rick nodded. He felt that way, too. The entire rocket had been checked out by teams of never less than two. Each man checked the other's work and both had to agree that all was in perfect order before the piece was accepted and checked off. Each man had to account to a guard before he could go to work. The system was foolproof. Now only the ultimate steps remained, the final checks, the fueling, and at the very last, the placement of the tiny spacemonk in his specially designed carrier.
"Let's go," Gee-Gee said.
They mounted the elevator and were whisked upward to the final stage. Gee-Gee picked up his walkie-talkie from the rack. "Do you read me, Dick?"
"Go ahead, Gee-Gee."
"Tell Jerry to go through checkoff."
Rick and Gee-Gee stood on the ramp and looked down at the ridiculously tiny wings and watched the control surfaces move in response to Jerry's gentle touch on the controls within the blockhouse. The drone control was working perfectly. Rick felt a surge of pride. This particular part of Pegasus was his.
The two went into the confined space in the nose. It was circular, the structural members rising to a near-peak overhead. A radar unit blocked out the tip of the nose cone. Under the unit a heavy steel channel ran down to the side of the drone control. Fixed to the channel by heavy springs was a tiny chair, complete with straps. The chair was festooned with wires, unconnected for the moment. The wires terminated in instruments that would sense every action, every response of the spacemonk's body. The chair channel was pivoted, so the monk would always be upright.