He was right. The timing had been as bad as possible. The blob of light on the screen was obviously being buffeted about. Something seemed to hit the top and jerk it.
The screen went blank, then lighted again. Collins had shifted his connections, to patch into the signal Control was watching. The blip of the Jennilee was now dead center, trying to tilt into a normal synergy curve. "Take it up, damn it!" Murdock swore hotly. This was no time to swing around the Earth until after the ship was above the storm. The tape for the automatic pilot should have been cut for a high first ascension. If Hennings was panicking and overriding it back to the familiar orbit....
As if the pilot heard him, the blip began rising again. It twisted and bucked. Something seemed to separate from it. There was a scattering of tiny white dots on the screen, drifting behind the ship. Murdock couldn't figure them. Then he forgot them as the first stage let go and began falling backward from the ship, heading on its great arc toward the ocean. Recovery would be rough. Now the second stage blasted out. And finally, the ship was above the storm and could begin to track toward its goal.
Abruptly the speaker in the corner snapped into life, and Hennings' voice sounded from it. "Jennilee to Base. Cancel the harps and haloes! We're in the clear!"
Collins snapped his hand down against a switch, killing the speaker. "Hotshot!" he said thickly, and yet there was a touch of admiration in his voice. "Ten years ago, they couldn't build ships to take what he gave it. So that makes him a tin god on wheels. Got a cigarette, Tommy?"
Murdock handed him the package and picked up the slicker again. He'd seen enough. The ship should have no further trouble, except for minor orbital corrections, well within the pilot's ability. For that matter, while Collins' statement was true enough, Hennings deserved a lot of the credit. And if he had to boast a little—well, maybe he deserved credit for the ability to snap back to normal after the pounding his body and nerves must have taken.
In the recreation hall, some of the pilots were busy exaggerating the dangers of the take-off for the newsmen, making it sound as if no parallel feat had been performed in all history. Murdock found a phone where he had some privacy and put through a call to let Pete and Sheila know when he'd be back—and that he was returning without a load. They'd already heard the news, however. He cut the call short and went out across the soggy field, cursing as his shoes filled with water. From the auditorium of the school, he could hear the band practicing; he wondered for a moment whether the drumbeat could make the cadets feel like heroes as they moved through mud with shoes that squished at every step. It had no such lifting effect on him.
The parking lot beyond the drill grounds was almost deserted, and his big truck seemed to huddle into the wind like a lonely old bull buffalo. He started the turbine and opened the cab heater, kicking off his sodden shoes. The dampness in the air brought out the smell of refuse and pigs from the rear, but he was used to it; anyhow, it was better than the machine-human-chemical stench of the space station.
Driving took most of his attention. The truck showed little wind-sway and the roads were nearly deserted, but vision was limited and the windshield kept steaming up, in spite of the silicone coating. He crawled along, grumbling to himself at the allocation of money for tourist superhighways at the expense of the back roads.