"Nope," said McCauley, "the condemned man's got a good appetite for breakfast. Quit worrying about me, Randy!"
"If you'd only slipped on your soap and broken your doggone neck," Randy complained, "a good guy might've gotten a chance to take your place!"
McCauley grinned. Randy would give his eyeteeth to take his place today. Anybody would. McCauley still worried that even now something would spoil things, but he'd been worrying for months. He'd been jumpy ever since the rumor first went around that sometime soon somebody was going up in a rocket and coming down again. Nobody ever had. Up to this morning it was still waiting to be done. But somebody—in fact, he himself—should do it today. This was why today was the most special day of his life.
Back in his quarters he shaved, marveling at the luck of the man he saw in the mirror. Three—four—five months ago he'd been telling himself that he didn't have a chance of being picked, even though he was sure he'd put in for it as soon as anybody had. He'd hoped he'd been the first to apply, but actually he was one of two hundred. They'd winnowed the applicants, though, and four months ago twenty were left, and then only ten. Now there was only himself in first place, with four other bitterly envious characters—Randy was one of them—wishing he'd break his neck so they could go in his place.
But nothing like that would happen if he could help it. Washing the shaving soap off his face, he found himself praying that everything would go all right. He didn't think of asking that he come down safely; after all, he could insure his safety by backing out. He just asked that he'd be all right when they checked him over, and that the count down would go all right, and that he'd get up to where the sky turned purple and then black and he saw the stars shining bright, with the sun among them as the nearest and greatest star of all. And he prayed that he'd do the right things while he was up there so the shoot would be a success.
He settled his uniform and went to breakfast. Randy had ordered for him and was waiting. Randy still looked worried. He'd tried hard for the job for himself, but now he was afraid that his friend McCauley might not check out. That the rocket might not check out. That when he got up there something might go wrong. That coming down would be bad.
"Soft-boiled," said McCauley appreciatively, breaking an egg. "My favorite fruit!"
"Do you really feel okay, Ed?" asked Randy.
McCauley grinned again, which was answer enough. Maybe he felt too good. He probably should tone down a little. After all, this shoot with a man as the payload wasn't a pleasure trip. It was research. It was an operation to verify other research. The medicos believed they knew what the psychological, physiological, and emotional effects of long-continued weightlessness would be. They needed to know how a normal man like McCauley would react to the unparalleled environment of nearer space. It was high-altitude research, primarily to enable planes to fly faster. A plane could be powered right now so that its wings would melt at sea level because of the heat its speed produced. The only way to reach theoretical top speed in a plane was to fly it away up. There was a thermal barrier to really high-speed flight. The only way around this barrier was over it, and it was necessary to find out how a man would make out in that detour. The Service had a long-established custom of spending a dollar instead of a man; now it had not to spend a man perhaps, but to risk one. And McCauley was the man.
He felt remarkably good, knowing that presently he should be where no man had ever been before, seeing with his own eyes that the earth was round. It struck him suddenly that everybody else in the world had only indirect evidence for believing this. He'd be the first man to know this for a fact simply because he'd gone up to where he would see the earth as a ball.