The Trouble with Telstar by John Berryman (the best novels to read .TXT) 📗

trick, of course, was to slow down to the point where he could spiral us down to Muroc Dry Lake. Nelly was a sort of glider. Her performance at about Mach 10 and two hundred thousand feet was quite respectable, but the lower and slower we went, the more she flew like the proverbial kitchen sink. Sid only had one bright spot: Our big fuel supply gave him plenty of rocket and retro when he wanted it, and allowed him to get us back over Muroc.

I can't say he made the landing look easy, because he didn't. It looked like plain hell to me, for we scorched in at something over four hundred miles an hour.

When Nelly screeched to a stop, we just sat there. There was none of this romantic business about snapping open face plates and exchanging witty remarks. Bubble helmets don't have face plates, and besides, I didn't have anything I wanted to say to Sid. I was as tired of him as he was of me. I was just plain tired, if you want to know the truth.

They didn't let us alone, of course. While the crash trucks were still kicking up a dust trail tearing out to get us, there were guys on the radio with those cool voices, and Sid was tiredly saying "Roger," to all their questions. And we didn't do any moving about. You'd be surprised how weighing four hundred pounds makes you willing to wait for the crane to lift you from your seat. All at once I almost wanted to be back in space again, where I didn't weigh anything at all. Almost.

They flew us back to Canaveral for the de-briefing, both asleep. The whole mob was there to greet us, Paul Cleary, Fred Stone, and even Sylvia. They met us at the plane and Sylvia was the first to grab me as I came down the steps.

"Mike!" she squealed. "Are you all right?"

"Better now," I said, kind of untangling from her. "How did you manage this?" I looked up. "Hi, Paul," I said to his sleepy old grin, and knew how.

"Dinner tonight?" she insisted.

"I don't know," I said, looking over at Paul. "I think there's a de-briefing or something before they turn me loose."

"Don't be silly," Sylvia said. "It's not as if you were an astronaut or something."

I was back on the ground, all right.

Well, there was sort of a de-briefing. Cleary and Stone got me alone for a moment in somebody's office.

"Well, Mike," Paul said, "that was a great performance. What was the trouble up there?"

I laughed at both of them. "Go jump in the lake," I said. "I'm out of the middle."

"What do you mean, Mike?" Doc Stone asked, holding his young-man's pipe at arm's length.

"It wasn't design—because the solenoid worked. And it wasn't installation. It was materials." I told them about the no-good insulation.

"Lucky it's only used in a couple points," Paul said, scowling. "I guess any other point where it broke up wasn't as critical in dimension and no short resulted."

"Not yet," I grinned. "It may. And I couldn't care less."

"You're a big winner, then, Mike," Paul grinned. "Fred and I have kind of made up anyway, and you're in solid with Sylvia."

"Not with that noise," I said. "No dame was worth that ride. Let Sid have her."

End of Project Gutenberg's The Trouble with Telstar, by John Berryman