In spite of the horrifying scream of the rocket and the increasing pressure, his mind was clear. The rocket was programmed to reach twelve G during first-stage flight—twelve times the force of gravity!
First-stage flight would last slightly over three minutes. By then, Pegasus would be nearly thirty miles up.
The pain began, the pain of tortured muscles and organs pressed slowly, inexorably toward the deck as acceleration built up. Rick wanted to turn over, at least to change the direction of pain, but he couldn't even do that. He was spread-eagled on the deck now, his muscles unable to move his increased weight.
Consciousness began to slip from him, and he fought against it. He had to remain alive! He was going to!
For a brief moment he succeeded, then the grayness moved in like an all-encompassing curtain.
Pegasus climbed into the blue sky, arrow-straight, still accelerating. The seconds ticked away. For an instant, the accelerometer hovered at twelve G, and slipped toward thirteen.
Rick was five feet, ten inches tall, and his weight was a constant hundred and sixty pounds. The rocket reached maximum acceleration, 12.6g, and for that instant Rick weighed 2,016 pounds—slightly over one ton!
Then . . . all burnt, fuel exhausted, the first-stage motor stopped.
The explosive bolts went into action. There was an explosion that made itself felt in the skin of the rocket, and the grinding of metal as the first stage detached.
Rick's battered brains swam back to consciousness. For an instant he couldn't recall what had happened, then he realized he had survived the first-stage acceleration. He was in bad shape, he knew. The salt taste in his mouth was blood, and he was breathing bubbles of blood through internal damage in his nose or lungs. But there wasn't time for inventory. The aching silence was lost as the second stage fired. Acceleration built again. This time Rick slipped into the enveloping grayness almost at once. The acceleration was less, and the time of burning was less. Had he not been put through the torture of first-stage acceleration he could have taken the second stage without more than great discomfort. But now he had little resistance left.