opening the communications channel, he listened to the other 'hot' hornets checking off.

"427."

"ready out."

"493."

"ready out."

"495."

"ready sir. out."

"501."

"my fuel gauge doesn't register, sir."

"scratch 501. 503."

"ready out," replied cressey. he wondered what was wrong with 501. no fuel? or gauge just out of whack somehow? the way the hornets were built, you could never be sure of anything. they were made for one trip, no more. no matter how the intercept worked out, they never went home again. there was not much money wasted in their construction. mackley had easily justified that, too.

cressey, you must understand one thing. we are desperate. the outspacers caught us totally unprepared, and some of the measures we must resort to are not what we would normally desire.

when the outspacers came into the system, six years ago, we had only two manned satellites in operation. within two years this was increased to six, and it was still inadequate. for this reason, another ring of stations was set up, this time one-man detector posts. there are twelve of them, two reporting to each satellite base. their orbit is roughly half-way between the orbits of earth and mars. two concentric circles about the earth, do you see? when an outspacer crosses d-line, a signal is flashed to the nearest satellite base and the hornets launched.

the point i'm trying to make, cressey, is this: it took nearly forty years to set up the first manned satellite, and that after all the means were in our hands. then, in just over two years, we put up four more satellites and twelve d-posts. we were not geared for that effort.

translated into personal terms, mackley had meant that the planet could not afford to enclose cressey in an adequate ship. too much would be lost if the outspacer weapons caught it.

the loading crew had retreated into the sealed cubicle from which they would watch the launching. the huge, curved walls of the hull began to roll back, and even in the cockpit, cressey could hear the air roar out into space with a brief explosion of sound. the air hissed out of his cockpit, and his suit inflated full. still no leak.

he felt a momentary panic as the launching rack swung him out, pointed away from the satellite directly into the emptiness of space. now he could not see the reassuring bulk of the mother ship. he was alone, with only the incredible myriads of stars before him, and the two needle points of the stingers projecting full into their mass. the tens of thousands of bright specks that seemed so close gave no comfort. his eyes told him space was full, crammed to bursting with stars, and his mind told him it was as empty as death.

pointed out into loneliness, riding the two graceful arrows, cressey heard the communicator rasp, "gentlemen, you are on an intercept to an outspace ship. the safety of your world rides with you. do your job well." the hypocritical son-of-a-bitch, thought cressey angrily, sitting in his snug control room telling us to do our job! well, maybe it made an impression on the first-timers, he couldn't remember. this was his third, and he could no longer remember any farther back than when he climbed into the cockpit. it was better not to remember his other missions, much better.

the roar seemed to come a split second before the pressure, and then cressey was slammed into his acceleration cradle by the sudden impact. his body suddenly weighed over a thousand pounds, and his blood sloshed wearily in his veins as a straining heart refused to pump such a load.