He had a gun.
"Get back," he snarled. "We're going down." He laughed sharply, near hysteria. "We're going down to tell the world how you fried—through error and mismanagement."
"You messed up those lines," Kevin said. It didn't matter now. He only hoped to hold Gordon long enough for diversionary help to come out of the tube.
"Yes," Gordon leered. "We fixed the lines. The senator wasn't sure we should, but I helped him over his squeamishness, and now we'll crack the whip when we get back home."
"You won't make it," Kevin said. "We're still more than 600 miles high. The glide pattern in that rocket is built to take you down from 500 miles."
McKelvie's head appeared in the hatch. He was desperately afraid.
"You said you could fly this thing, Gordon. Can you?"
Max nodded his head rapidly, like a schoolboy asked to recite a lesson he has not studied.
Kevin was against the bulkhead. Now he pushed himself slowly forward.
"Stay back or I'll shoot?" Gordon screamed. Instead, he leaped backward through the hatch.