CHAPTER III
After a few short bursts which lifted the satellite up into a higher orbit, the jets stopped. The artificial moon went on coasting innocently around the Earth.
"Well—I'll—be—damned!" said MacIlheny softly. The others, either silently or verbally, agreed with him.
"Get a reading on that new orbit!" MacIlheny snapped after a moment. Blake was already on the telephone.
MacIlheny turned to Major Hamacher. "Be ready to take that bird up as soon as we get orbital readings and bearings. There's something screwy as hell going on up there, and I want to find out what it is! Those jets shouldn't be working at all. What could have turned them on at exactly the right moment?" He was talking more to himself than to the major, who was busily making last-minute adjustments on the instruments.
The computations on the new orbit came in, were run through the computers, and then fed into the autopilot section of the remote controls for the RJ-37.
"Any time you're ready, Major," MacIlheny said.
The major adjusted his controls, threw a switch, and pressed a stud.
Over two thousand miles away, in White Sands Spaceport, New Mexico, the atomic-powered, fully armed RJ-37 squirted a tongue of white-hot flame out of her rocket motors, climbed into the air, and launched herself toward space.