Stand by for Mars! Part 19

He walked over to the master control panel and switched the teleceiver screen. There was a slight buzz, and a view of the s.p.a.ceport outside the ship suddenly came into focus, filling the screen. Strong flipped a switch and a view aft on the _Polaris_ filled the glowing square. The aluminum scaffolding was being hauled away by a jet truck. Again the view changed as Strong twisted the dials in front of him.

"Just scanning the outside, boys," he commented. "Have to make sure there isn't anyone near the ship when we blast off. The rocket exhaust is powerful enough to blow a man two hundred feet, to say nothing of burning him to death."

"You mean, sir--" began Tom, not daring to hope.

"Of course, Corbett," smiled Strong. "Take your stations for blast-off.

We raise ship as soon as we get orbital clearance from s.p.a.ceport control!"

Without waiting for further orders, the three boys scurried to their stations.

Soon the m.u.f.fled whine of the energizing pumps on the power deck began to ring through the ship, along with the steady beep of the radar scanner on the radar bridge. Tom checked the maze of gauges and dials on the control board. Air locks, hatches, oxygen supply, circulating system, circuits, and feeds. In five minutes the two-hundred-foot shining steel hull was a living thing as her rocket motors purred, warming up for the initial thrust.

Tom made a last sweeping check of the complicated board and turned to Captain Strong who stood to one side watching.

"Ship ready to blast off, sir," he announced. "Shall I check stations and proceed to raise ship?"

"Carry on, Cadet Corbett," Strong replied. "Log yourself in as skipper with me along as supercargo. I'll ride in the second pilot's chair."

Tom snapped a sharp salute and added vocally, "Aye, aye, sir!"

He turned back to the control board, strapped himself into the command pilot's seat and opened the circuit to the s.p.a.ceport control tower.

"Rocket cruiser _Polaris_ to s.p.a.ceport control," he droned into the microphone. "Check in!"

"s.p.a.ceport control to _Polaris_," the voice of the tower operator replied. "You are cleared for blast-off in two minutes. Take out--orbit 75 ... repeat ... 75...."

"_Polaris_ to s.p.a.ceport control. Orders received and understood. End transmission!"

Tom then turned his attention to the station check.

"Control deck to radar deck. Check in."

"Radar deck, aye! Ready to raise ship." Roger's voice was relaxed, easy.

Tom turned to the board to adjust the teleceiver screen for a clear picture of the stern of the ship. Gradually it came up in as sharp detail as if he had been standing on the ground.

He checked the electric timing device in front of him that ticked off the seconds, as a red hand crawled around to _zero_, and when it swept down to the thirty-second mark, Tom pulled the microphone to his lips again. "Control deck to power deck. Check in!"

"Power deck, aye?"

"Energize the cooling pumps!"

"Cooling pumps, aye!" repeated Astro.

"Feed reactant!"

"Reactant at D-9 rate."

From seventy feet below them, Strong and Tom heard the hiss of the reactant ma.s.s feeding into the rocket motors, and the screeching whine of the mighty pumps that kept the ma.s.s from building too rapidly and exploding.

The second hand swept up to the twenty-second mark.

"Control deck to radar deck," called Tom. "Do we have a clear trajectory forward?"

"All clear forward and overhead," replied Roger.

Tom placed his hand on the master switch that would throw the combined circuits, instruments and gauges into the single act of blasting the mighty ship into s.p.a.ce. His eyes glued to the sweeping hand, he counted past the twelve-second mark--eleven--ten--nine--

"Stand by to raise ship," he bawled into the microphone.

"Minus--five--four--three--two--one--_zero_!"

Tom threw the master switch.

There was a split-second pause and then the great ship roared into life.

Slowly at first, she lifted her tail full of roaring jets free of the ground. Ten feet--twenty--fifty--a hundred--five hundred--a thousand--picking up speed at an incredible rate.

Tom felt himself being pushed deeper and deeper into the softness of the acceleration cushions. He had been worried about not being able to keep his eyes open to see the dwindling Earth in the teleceiver over his head, but the tremendous force of the rockets pushing him against gravity to tear the two hundred tons of steel away from the Earth's grip held his eyelids open for him. As the powerful rockets tore deeper into the gap that separated the ship from Earth, he saw the s.p.a.ceport gradually grow smaller. The rolling hills around the Academy closed in, and then the Academy itself, with the Tower of Galileo shrinking to a white stick, was lost in the brown and green that was Earth. The rockets pushed harder and harder and he saw the needle of the acceleration gauge creep slowly up. Four--five--six--seven--eight--nine--ten miles a second!

When the awful crushing weight on his body seemed unbearable, when he felt as though he would never be able to draw another breath, suddenly the pressure lifted and Tom felt amazingly and wonderfully buoyant. He seemed to be floating in mid-air, his body rising against the webbed straps of his chair! With a start and a momentary wave of panic, he realized that he _was_ floating! Only the straps kept him from rising to the ceiling of the control room!

Recovering quickly, he realized that he was in free fall. The ship had cleared the pull of earth's gravity and was out in s.p.a.ce where everything was weightless. Reaching toward the control panel, he flipped the switch for the synthetic-gravity generator and, seconds later, felt the familiar and rea.s.suring sensation of the chair under him as the generator supplied an artificial-gravity field to the ship.

As he loosened the straps in his chair, he noticed Captain Strong rising from his position beside him and he grinned sheepishly in answer to the twinkle in Strong's eye.

"It's all right, Tom," rea.s.sured Strong. "Happens to everyone the first time. Carry on."

"Aye, aye, sir," replied Tom and he turned to the microphone. "Control deck to all stations! We are in s.p.a.ce! Observe standard cruise procedure!"

"Power deck, aye!" was Astro's blasting answer over the loud-speaker.

"Yeeeoooww! Out where we belong at last."

"Radar bridge here," Roger's voice chimed in softly on the speaker.

"Everything under control. And, Astro, you belong in a zoo if you're going to bellow like that!"

"Ahhh--rocket off, bubblehead!" The big Venusian's reply was good-natured. He was too happy to let Roger get under his skin.

"All right, you two," interrupted Tom. "Knock it off. We're on a ship now. Let's cut the kindergarten stuff!"

"Aye, aye, skipper!" Astro was irrepressible.

"Yes, _sir_!" Roger's voice was soft but Tom recognized the biting edge to the last word.

Turning away from the controls, he faced Captain Strong who had been watching quietly.

"_Polaris_ s.p.a.ce-borne at nine hundred thirty-three hours, Captain Strong. All stations operating efficiently."

"Very competent job, Corbett," nodded Strong in approval. "You handled the ship as if you'd been doing it for years."

"Thank you, sir."