open hatch. He stuck his head
in, grinned, said, "Hi, guy," softly. There was something in his eyes.
The Doll had told him how I hate sour notes.

"How's the Doll, Pop?" I forced myself to say it.

"Swell, Ed. Just got a call from her. On her way out here to see you
take off. Looks like she won't make it now though."

I didn't say anything. His eyes went down to the wallet I had propped
up on my knees. The wallet was open, celluloid window showing. Inside
the window was the Doll's picture.

"Tell her that, Pop," I said.

"Yeah, guy. Luck."

They shut the hatch.

There was no doubt about the takeoff. If one thing was perfected in
the XXE-1 it was that. The ship rose like the mercury in a thermometer
on a hot day in July. I took it slow to fifty thousand feet.

"Fifty thousand," I said into the throat mike.

"Hear you, Anders." Melrose's voice.

"Smooth," I said. "Radar on me?"

"On you, Anders."

I let the ship have a little head. This job used the clutch of a tax
collector's claws for fuel. It just hooked itself on the nothing
around us and yanked--and there we were.

One hundred thousand.

"Double that," I said into the mike.

"Yeah, Anders. How is it?"

"Haven't yet begun. Radar still on me?"

I heard a nervous laugh. _He_ was nervous. "The General--General
Hotchkiss just said something, Anders. He--ha, ha--he said you're on
plot like stitches in a fat lady's hip. Ha, ha! He's got _us_ all in
stitches. Ha, ha!"

_Ha, ha!_

This was it. I released my grip on the accelerator control, yet it
slide up. They say you can't feel speed in the air unless there's
something relative within vision to tip you off. They're going to have
to revise that. You can not only feel speed you can reach out and
break hunks off it--in the XXE-1, that is. I shook my head, took my
eyes off the instruments and looked down at the Doll on my lap.

"Melrose?"

"Hear you, Anders."

"This is it. Reaching me on radar still?"

"Naturally."

"All right."

This was it. This was where the other four ships like the XXE-1--the
radio controlled models--had disintegrated. This was where it
happened, and they didn't come back anymore.

I sucked in oxygen and let the accelerator control go over all the
way.

Pulling a ship out of a steep dive, yes. Blackout then, yes. If the wings
stay with you everything's fine and you live to mention the incident at
the bar a little while later. Blackout accelerating--climbing--is not i