hould be approximately one minute before the major
color changes began, which was also the minimum time for gyro run up.
Johnny resumed the watching and the waiting.

How long is a minute?

Is it the time it takes the fear-frozen trainee, staring glass-eyed at
the fumbled grenade to realize that this one at his feet is a dud?

Or is it the time before the rock-climber, clinging nail and toe to the
rock face with the rope snapped suddenly taut, feels it at last slacken
and sees the hands gripping safely come into sight?

Perhaps the greenhorn, rifle a-waver, watching the glimpse of tawny
color in the veldt-grass and waiting the thunder and the charge, could
say.

They'd all be wrong. It's much longer.

Long enough for Johnny to think of a dozen precautions he could have
taken, a dozen better ways to rig this or that. Long enough to worry
about whether the gyros were really running up as they should. A
thousand queries and doubts piled mountainously upward to an almost
unbearable peak of tension till suddenly the browns and greens below
flashed a shade lighter and it was time, and the savage snap on the
lanyard a blessed relief and total committal.

* * * * *

In the few seconds after the firing of the prime and before the busy
little timer snapped the valves wide open Johnny managed to slip his
toes under the jet pedals to avoid accidental firing. At the same time
he braced himself as rigidly as possible with aching arms against the
walls of the cylinder.

He saw briefly the flare of the jet reflected off the remnants of his
cloud of station stores before deceleration with all its unpleasantness
began.

The lip of the cylinder's mouth swept up past his helmet as he was
rammed deep into the absorbent mass of ribbon chute. This wasn't a
padded contour chair under a mild 3G lift. The chutes took the first
shock, but Johnny took the rest the hard way, standing bolt upright.

He found with some surprise his head was right down through the neck
ring and inside the suit proper, his arms half withdrawn from the
sleeves, knees buckled to an almost unbelievable angle considering the
dimensions of the lower case.

He had time to hope fervently the cheap expendable motor wouldn't burn
out its throat and send him cart-wheeling through space, or blow the
surrounding tanks before the blackout came down.

He came out of it sluggishly, to find the relief from the dreadful
pressure almost as