Patrick watched in silence until Ely went through the last display of the neon-closed loop, then settled back, satisfied. He made a thumbs-up sign to Patrick.

“And that takes care of the check-list. All in the green, A-OK, oh-chio gay. Plug into Mission Control and tell them we are ready to fire when they are.” He looked at the GET readout on the wall. “09:16 and they gave us about twenty-four hours in this orbit before things warmed up. Fourteen hours and forty-four minutes to go, which is not very much time. Tell them we're in a hurry and have an orbit to catch.”

21

GET 05:45

Academician A. A. Tsander was an old man and well aware of it. He looked the picture of the frail octogenarian, with his wispy white beard and crown of floating hair. Never a large man, he had been bent by age so that he walked now with a perpetual stoop that forced him to bend his head back to look up at people. Yet he was neither as weak nor as frail as he appeared, as many had discovered through the years. Reaching his now exalted rank in the Academy of Sciences had taken a good deal of scientific skill — as well as a wicked talent for political infighting. He was liberally endowed with both, but he was eighty-three and knew it, so he husbanded his energy for the times it would be needed.

He was asleep now, lying on his back on the leather couch in his office, his long white fingers laced together on his chest. His breathing was so unnoticeable that he could have been a corpse. Yet, deeply asleep as he was, his eyes opened instantly when the doorknob turned silently and a beam of light came into the room.

“What time is it? “he asked.

“Almost midnight, Academician. The American colonel is here, you asked that you…”

“Of course. I will be down.” Three hours' sleep, more than enough preparation for what was sure to be a long night ahead. He poured some water into the basin from the jug, bathed his face and hands then dried them. Then he lighted a papirossi, one of the thin cigarettes he favored, more paper than tobacco, shoved the rest of the package in his pocket and went out. The halls in the office floors were dark and quiet and he walked through them slowly, gathering strength. He had a feeling he would need it.

Inside the Ground Command Control Center there was light and sound in direct contrast to the dark halls and tiny bulbs in the rest of the building. Here was the beating heart of Kapus-tin Yar, the central command to which all inputs fed, from which radiated all commands. Standing at the rear of the great room, Colonel O'Brian was very happy to be there. This entire area had been Top Secret for generations, mentioned only in CIA reports, and then in only general terms. GCCT in KY — the Soviets were as fond as alphabet names as the Americans were — the center of ICBM and satellite launches. Well the ICBM controls were gone now, where he didn't care, though the CIA probably knew. What was left were the satellite controls which were now being used to land the Prometheus boosters. And, since this was a joint Soviet-American project, it was necessary to have liaison and at least one observer here.

How the Soviets had wriggled and twisted over that one! How responsibility had been passed higher and higher, until the Communist Party Central Committee had finally inherited the buck, since it had nowhere else to go. Back, after a long time, had come a reluctant yes. Arriving, the very next day, was Colonel O'Brian who had been waiting for years for just this opportunity.

It had been a bit of a letdown, most of the Soviet secrecy being just bad habit as always. There wasn't anything done here that wasn't done in Houston. Only better. Yet it was interesting to see how they did it because it told him a lot about the operation of their ICBMs. O'Brian was not a cold warrior, but he was still in the Army and the more he learned the better it was for his side. He was the new kind of officer, with degrees in mathematics and physics. But he was still an officer. He held the briefcase under his arm and looked around at the now familiar consoles and general bustle. Not the world's most modern setup, but it worked, it worked very well indeed.

“Are those the promised figures?” a deep chesty voice asked in Russian.