eaked high over the Texas border.
Ruiz, watching the radarscope, saw Lubbock slide into focus miles below.
_Next stop, Fort Worth_, he thought. _I used to drive that in five
hours._ The jagged line of the caprock told him they were well on their
way to Fort Worth already.

The altimeter showed slightly over forty-two miles when stage two
detached itself. Logan, in constant contact with White Sands, was
informed that they were tracking perfectly as _Valier_ arrowed over
central Texas toward rendezvous at the doughnut. The exhausted lower
stages were forgotten now; only the second stage was of any concern
anyway. The radar boys tracked it all the way down, ready to detonate it
high in the air if its huge 'chutes wafted it near any inhabited
community.

The motors of stage three blasted for a carefully calculated few
seconds, then cut out automatically. With the destitution of his weight,
Mac felt his spirits soar also. They were almost in orbit, now, climbing
at a slight angle with a velocity sufficient to carry them around Earth
forever, a streamlined, tiny satellite.

After the first few moments of disorientation, rocket crews found that a
weightless condition gave them, ambiguously, a buoyant feeling. Only the
doughnut crew had really adapted to this condition, living as they did
without the effects of gravity for hours at a time every day. The
temporary "housing" was rotated for comfort of the crews during rest
periods, but while moving the plates and girders of the giant doughnut
into place, they had no such luxuries. For these men, weightlessness
became an integral part of their activities, but the rocket crews were
subjected to this phenomenon only during the few hours needed to
rendezvous, unload the cargo, and coast back after another initial
period of acceleration.

Hence, Mac felt a strange elation when he tapped his fingers on the arm
of his couch and saw his arm float upward, due to reaction from the tap.

Against all regulations, Logan unstrapped himself and motioned his
comrades to do the same. This unorthodox seventh-inning stretch was
prohibited because it left the pilot's arm-rest controls without an
operator, hence could prove disastrous if, through some malfunction, the
ship should veer off course.

The autopilot functioned perfectly, however, and Logan trusted it to the
point of insouciance. The three men lounged in midair, grinning
foolishly as they "swam" about the tiny cabin. No more satisfy