"You don't quit after ten years." Charters looked at his watch, counting silently.
"He's been sold out," Lampson said, thinking of Randall, sitting in the rocket. "A lifetime of worry and work and prayer. Now he's been sold out."
"Damn it, man," Charters said, "it's nearly ready to happen!"
The room was silent, and the ticking was in the air again. A steady, rhythmic ticking, that got into the brain and beat time with the heart.
One minute.
The rocket rested on its launch, as though tightening its metallic muscles and cords, to spring into the air like a wild frenzied terror, to cut through the sky, through space, to touch the Moon.
"Thirty seconds," Charters said, his voice trembling.
Lampson closed his hands and his eyes.
"Twenty seconds." Charters bent his head over his watch. His breathing shortened and he waited, tensed, crouched. "Ten. Five, four, three, two..."
The ground shook as though a chasm had split beneath its surface! There was a streaking in the air. The rocket sped away and away.