CHAPTER XVII
Weight, One Ton
Rick had no time to think. He reacted. He pulled off the jacket he hadworn against the chill of the desert night, and rolled it tightly. Hedropped to the deck and stretched flat on his back, the jacket tuckedunder the back of his head and neck.
He put his hands flat on the deck and sensed the increasing shudder ofthe great rocket. It was building thrust! Fuel poured into thecombustion chamber and fantastically hot exhaust gases flared from themotor exhaust. And with each passing second thrust built up inside themotor chamber.
When the thrust exceeded the rocket's weight, Pegasus would take off!
He knew it wouldn't be long. Seconds more.
The entire rocket screamed as vibration ran in torturing waves throughits metal skeleton and skin. It passed the point of discomfort andbecame unbearable. Rick rocked his head from side to side, as though toget rid of the shattering howl, but it tore at his head, at his stomach,at his very skin.
He closed his eyes for a moment, and when he opened them again he sawthat Prince Machiavelli had moved, downward. The powerful springs thatheld his little chair were lengthening.
Air-borne!
Rick became conscious of weight. He was being pressed into the metaldeck by a mighty hand. It was hard to breathe.
Pegasus was not designed to accommodate humans. No attention had beenpaid to limits of human endurance. It was all right for the marmoset;his spring chair would take up much of the G forces. But Rick had nopadding at all, except for the thin jacket under his head. He had nosupport but the metal deck, and before this was over his body would beterribly distorted as forces many times gravity rammed him relentlesslyinto the metal.
In spite of the horrifying scream of the rocket and the increasingpressure, his mind was clear. The rocket was programmed to reach twelveG during first-stage flight--twelve times the force of gravity!
First-stage flight would last slightly over three minutes. By then,Pegasus would be nearly thirty miles up.
The pain began, the pain of tortured muscles and organs pressed slowly,inexorably toward the deck as acceleration built up. Rick wanted to turnover, at least to change the direction of pain, but he couldn't even dothat. He was spread-eagled on the deck now, his muscles unable to movehis increased weight.
Consciousness began to slip from him, and he fought against it. He hadto remain alive! He was going to!
For a brief moment he succeeded, then the grayness moved in like anall-encompassing curtain.
Pegasus climbed into the blue sky, arrow-straight, still accelerating.The seconds ticked away. For an instant, the accelerometer hovered attwelve G, and slipped toward thirteen.
Rick was five feet, ten inches tall, and his weight was a constanthundred and sixty pounds. The rocket reached maximum acceleration,12.6g, and for that instant Rick weighed 2,016 pounds--slightly over oneton!
Then . . . all burnt, fuel exhausted, the first-stage motor stopped.
The explosive bolts went into action. There was an explosion that madeitself felt in the skin of the rocket, and the grinding of metal as thefirst stage detached.
Rick's battered brains swam back to consciousness. For an instant hecouldn't recall what had happened, then he realized he had survived thefirst-stage acceleration. He was in bad shape, he knew. The salt tastein his mouth was blood, and he was breathing bubbles of blood throughinternal damage in his nose or lungs. But there wasn't time forinventory. The aching silence was lost as the second stage fired.Acceleration built again. This time Rick slipped into the envelopinggrayness almost at once. The acceleration was less, and the time ofburning was less. Had he not been put through the torture of first-stageacceleration he could have taken the second stage without more thangreat discomfort. But now he had little resistance left.
He came back to consciousness again as the second stage cut off. In thewelcome silence he found time to be thankful he was still alive, eventhough it might be a temporary thing. He looked up at Prince Machiavellithrough bloodshot eyes and couldn't see the little monk. For a terribleinstant he thought he was blind, then he saw a glimmer of light throughthe port. It was the sun. The rocket was in the wrong position to catchit directly, however, and the atmosphere was far too thin to scatterlight.
He heard the second stage explode off and tried to brace himself for thefinal acceleration. He made himself think. He was in a spot, a very badspot. The Earthman had sabotaged the flight. But how? The first twostages had worked. Even if the third-stage motor never fired, the rocketwas high enough to prove out the project objective.
There was only one answer. Even to his fogged brain it was clear thatthe drone control had been sabotaged by the Earthman. Otherwise cuttingthe signal wire would have kept the board from showing green. Somehow,the signal wire had been bypassed, to keep the operators from knowingthe drone control was inoperative.
The final stage fired and acceleration began once more. Rick fought it.He tried to ignore the pain of the crushing, distorting weight and triedto keep his mind on the problem. He failed.
Pegasus was no longer traveling straight out from earth now. Thegimbaled rocket motor swung slightly to one side and the rocket'strajectory flattened. As it swung on the new course, sunlight glanced inthrough the open port and into Rick's open, sightless eyes.
It was raw sunlight, unfiltered by the atmosphere. It was sunlight nohuman had ever seen before. Even in his semiconscious state Rickrealized the danger and managed to shut his eyes. The sunlight seemed toburn through the lids, to scorch the insides of his head. Then therocket moved along its new trajectory slightly and the merciless beamshifted, blazed on the sketch of a knight in armor impaling Pegasus withhis lance.
Rick realized dimly that the terrible light was gone. He opened his eyesand saw the spacemonk. It was as though someone had drawn layer afterlayer of gauze between the boy and the marmoset, but he understood thatPrince Machiavelli was still alive, and in far better shape than he was.
The vibrating, paralyzing scream of the rocket suddenly cut off. Silenceflooded in.
End of burning for stage three!
Pegasus had altered course slightly, in response to its pre-setmechanisms. Now it was on a course that would take it to the maximumpoint into space, but at the same time would keep it over Scarlet Lake.For a few minutes more it would coast on its momentum, slowingconstantly until it reached maximum altitude. Then, briefly, it wouldhesitate.
Momentum used up, earth's gravity would again assume control. The rocketwould slip back, tail first, slowly, slowly, then faster and faster,beginning the long, final plunge to the ground.