On a certain night, a night long appointed, one overshadowed with heavy clouds that brought a threat of rain, there were lights about the rocket and in the low, concrete buildings that cowered back a ways from the upright metal giant. Around the base of the rocket men scurried like ants, making last minute preparations and seeing that everything was just so and not being satisfied with "good enough".
In one building, a little nearer the rocket than the others, two men lounged, talking of the coming trip and other things that concerned last night's women, and smoking endlessly, the last smokes they would have for four days. These men would soon climb into a long, metal thing and try to do what others had failed to do.
In other buildings were men with great ideas held firmly in their minds, doing things with pencils and paper and adding machines. These checked back over figures and charts, knowing all the time that everything was flawless, but checking just the same. Some were Army men and some were not.
The feeling that seemed to grow over everything was one of waiting and suspense, and one might know without asking, without seeing the many glances at watches and clocks, that it would soon be time.
Strangely, the two men waiting and speaking mostly of wine, women and general good times, knew very little of the import of what they were about to do. In fact, they had no real concept of even the size of the earth, let alone the magnitude of space, the moon and the stars. This, however, was as intended.
The men who had gone in the other rockets had been scientists, greatly skilled men, men of high I.Q.'s. So the brass and the brains had gotten together and reasoned, and pooled data, and considered statistics, and finally decided that the strain of being completely out of one's natural element, exposed to the terrible, thought-twisting blankness of space, might be greater than had been supposed. And the high-strung, sensitive, sometimes slightly neurotic minds of the highly intelligent might well be expected to crack under the strain.
This, of course, was at most a poor explanation. But it served, at least, as an excuse for retaining the great minds and sending those more expendable. These, not knowing, would probably consider the whole thing nothing more than a slightly unusual adventure.
So when the Army officers came, very stiff and orderly, and opened the door to the little building, the two men came out laughing and pushing at one another playfully. They followed the little group of officers toward the gleaming rocket, not at all worried, like men going off for a happy spree at some local bar.
The rocket seemed to loom higher as they neared it. It was now bathed in the light of many spotlights, reflecting back the light in such a way that one might think he would go blind if he looked too long. Only when they stepped on to a platform, with two of the higher officers, and were lifted swiftly upward, did they give a thought to what was going on.