"If I sound melodramatic forgive me, and bear with me. You both realize, I'm certain, that any Next War would be a war to the death. After which--" the skillfully-modulated voice lowered, softened, paused, softened again.... "After which, there will be only one of us left. _Because there will be no time for armistice, for truce...._ It will be Our Side, or Theirs. Gentlemen, it _must be Ours! So if there is war, I repeat_, all _the Enemy must die!_
"That's all I have, except to say good luck and God-speed."
Very firm hand-shake for each of them, and Final Briefing was over.
Even yet Joshua Thorn could remember that first emotion shared by himself and Streeter after the effects of the four-G blast-off had worn away, after the tension of establishing orbit was eased, the first report made to Home Plate, and they were at last granted a moment's rest, a moment's respite to look back, to realize....
They could almost see themselves, the National Emblem emblazoned brilliantly on their chalk-white metal skin, riding in dignified, silent triumph over all of the Earth. Now let anybody--anybody, anybody anywhere (for weren't they above all of anywhere?) shake a fist, rattle a sabre!
First Men in Space. Like God, somehow....
They thudded each other on the back, they yelled things they could not remember, they let the tears flood down their cheeks without noticing, and they laughed; they laughed long and loudly with words and wordlessly, and then they watched again, watched mighty Earth below them turning by some power that was not theirs to see on an invisible spit over Infinity.
It was at the end of the fourth month that Streeter died.
"Josh? Josh what's our trouble?" Young, earnest. Wiry and pink-cheeked and an eternal glint of excitement in his light blue eyes.
Thorn kept studying the instruments as he answered, slowly, and without alarm in his voice. It wasn't much, but the bunching of his thick eyebrows had given him away. It always did.
"Port reflector's all, I guess, Johnny. Been watching it; a hair off, so we're down just enough BTU's to make a dent in power supply. Must have come out a little cockeyed when we popped it. Want to watch the panel a few minutes while I--"
"Second-guessed you, Skipper--" Johnny Streeter was already halfway into a pressure-suit. "Just zip me up the back and check my petticoat...."