He never so much as flicked a glance in the civilian's direction as he continued, "This incident proves the absolute necessity for such a capability. Your flight will be the first practical demonstration of all that we've battled to achieve 110 over the past decade. You can see, then, the importance of your mission."

"Yessir."

"This is strictly a volunteer mission. Exactly because it is so important to the future of the Air Force, I don't want you to try it unless you are absolutely certain about it."

"I understand, sir. I'm your man."

Hatch's weathered face unfolded into a grim smile. "Well spoken, Captain. Good luck."

The General rose and everyone scrambled to their feet and snapped to attention, even the civilian. As the others filed out of the briefing room, Murdock drew Kinsman aside.

"You had your chance to beg off."

"And the General would've drawn a big red circle around my name. My days in the Air Force would be numbered,"

"That's not the way he—"

"Relax, Colonel," Kinsman said. "I wouldn't miss this for the world. A chance to play cops and robbers in orbit."

"We're not in this for laughs! This is damned important. If it really is a weapon up there, a nuclear bomb . . ."

"I'll be the first to know, won't I?"

The countdown of the solid rocket booster went smooth- ly, swiftly, as Kinsman sat alone in the Manta spacecraft perched atop the rocket's nose. There was always the chance that a man or machine would fail at a crucial point and turn the intricate, delicately poised booster into a very large and powerful bomb.

Kinsman sat tautly in the contoured seat, listening to them tick off the seconds. He hated countdowns, hated being helpless, completely dependent on faceless voices that flick- ered through his earphones, waiting childlike in a mechanical womb, not truly alive, doubled up and crowded by the unfeeling impersonal machinery that automatically gave him warmth and breath and life.

Waiting.

He could feel the tiny vibrations along his spine that told him the ship was awakening. Green lights blossomed across the control panel, telling him that everything was functioning 111 and ready. Still the voices droned through his earphones in carefully measured cadence:

". . . three . . . two . . . one . . ."

And she bellowed to life. Acceleration flattened Kins- man into the seat. Vibration rattled his eyes in their sockets. Time became a meaningless roar. The surging, engulfing, overpowering bellow of the rocket engines made his head ring even after they had burned out into silence.

Within minutes he was in orbit, the long slender rocket stages falling away behind, together with all sensation of weight. Kinsman sat alone in the squat, delta-shaped space- craft: weightless, free of Earth.

Still he was the helpless unstirring one. Computers sent guidance corrections from the ground to the Mania's controls. Tiny vectoring thrusters squirted on and off, microscopic puffs that maneuvered the craft into the precise orbit needed for catching the Soviet satellite.

What if she zaps me as I approach her? Kinsman wondered.

Completely around the world he spun, southward over the Pacific and then up over the wrinkled cloud-shrouded mass of Eurasia. They must have picked me up on their radars, he thought. They must know that I'm chasing their bird. As he swung across Alaska the voices from the ground began talking to him again. He answered them as automati- cally as the machines did, reading numbers off the control panels, proving to them that he was alive and functioning properly.

Then Smitty's voice cut in. He was serving as communi- cator from Vandenberg. "There's been another launch, fif- teen minutes ago. From the cosmonaut base at Tyuratam. High-energy boost. Looks like you're going to have com- pany."

Kinsman acknowledged the information, but still sat unmoving.

Finally he saw it hurtling toward him. He came to life. To meet and board the satellite he had to match its orbit and velocity exactly. He was approaching too fast. Radar and computer data flashed in amber flickers across the screens on Kinsman's control panel. His eyes and fingers moved con- stantly, a well-trained pianist performing a new and tricky 112 sonata. He worked the thruster controls and finally eased his Manta into a rendezvous orbit a few dozen meters from the massive Russian satellite.