The time piece on the wall was broken. It had to be. Wade had been watching it for hours and it hardly seemed to move. The Starfrost had disappeared behind the dark side of the Moon and a press release had been duly passed on to the anxious public. The world was electrified. Man had ventured into space. The public hadn't been told that there was no communication with the Starfrost. It was better that way. Wade fished for another cigarette as he followed the sweep second hand with his eyes. It was ironic, in a way. Man had ventured to the Moon and could not land. He dared not. To set foot on the cold, dead satellite when there was no possible way of return would be inviting suicide. The test rocket fired at the silent world, and the Starfrost had eaten up the last of the appropriations and it would take a battery of ships to carry the supplies necessary for the building of take-off facilities.
That was what Wade wanted, an installation on the Moon before another nation could make it. It was no secret that the nation that controlled the Moon in the next war would be in the driver's seat. It would be a fortress in the sky. And it was no secret that another nation was almost ready to launch a ship. Wade wanted to get there first.
Wade could feel the sweat on his hands. They felt cold and clammy. The Starfrost should have reappeared on the radar set an hour ago. He dared not think of what would happen to Ackerson if the big blond man miscalculated while in orbit. To shoot off alone into black, empty space, hurtling out into a void of nothing, where there was only a cold, quiet death awaiting was no way for a man to die.
Damn it. Whe............