"The hull will hold enough air to keep me alive for as long as I need to be there."
"But the rocket is in constantly accelerating flight. It's a moving target."
"Red-Dog Jimmie Thurman's plane was falling and Colonel Grant's satellite was moving and Spike Larson's sub was on the bottom of the Indian Ocean. Don't give me any back talk, Sam. Somebody got into that plane and that satellite and that submarine. I can get into that rocket. You're the man who can put me there."
"But I'm not on that target!" West's voice had a wail in it.
"Then get on it!" Kurt Zen sounded like an exceedingly gruff drill sergeant addressing a new recruit, or like a colonel who had his mind made up.
"All right. I'll do my best. But something will remain here, Kurt, even after the explosion. We'll be safe, in a way, here."
"That argument has already been used, by me, to get the others back to you. You and I know, Sam, that hell won't hold a hat to the American continent if that whizzer hits."
"All right," West repeated. "Ah! I'm on the rocket as a target."
"Good!" Zen repressed every muscular tremor everywhere in his body.
Somewhere there was jubilation, a sensed but not tangible vibration that he could not locate. He concentrated on the jubilation.