"Your flight orders, Lance. Got the preset tapes installed and checked?"
"Yes, sir."
"Well, you should know your onions now, if you're ever going to. Best of luck, son."
"Thank you, colonel."
Lance turned. "Good-by, Carolyn. Just four weeks now, like I said."
"I'll be waiting."
"First jump's always the hardest, I hear," spoke up the second aide, cheerily. Like a great many other execs, the officer boasted no active space rating, though he did wear the winged moons of an observer.
But Lance and Carolyn were again quite busy, and did not hear.
Inside the shell of the Cosmos XII, Lance, sitting flat on his back against gravity, looked up at the sweep hands on the control deck clocks and hurried through his pre-jump check list. Tension mounted inside him. He contacted the Operations people in the bunker over the radio net. Colonel Sagen's voice came in clear: "Five minutes, Lance."