e salty taste out of his throat. His stomach was
uneasy, but he wasn't spacesick. Had he been prone to spacesickness, he
would never have been accepted as a Rocket Interceptor pilot. Rocket
Interceptor pilots had to be capable of taking all the punishment their
ships could dish out.

He knew there would be fifty seconds of free-fall before the rockets
fired again. One solid-fuel stage had imparted to the ship a velocity
which would carry it to the altitude of the missile it was to intercept.
A second solid-fuel stage would match trajectories with the missile.
Final corrections would be made with the liquid-fuel rockets in the
third stage. The third stage would then become a glider which eventually
would carry him back to Earth.

Before the second stage was fired, however, the ship had to be oriented
properly. The autopilot consulted its gyros, took some star sights, and
asked the navigation computer some questions. The answers came back in
seconds, an interval which was several hours shorter than a human pilot
would have required. Using the answers, the autopilot started to swing
the ship about, using small compressed-gas jets for the purpose.
Finally, satisfied with the ship's orientation, the autopilot rested. It
patiently awaited the moment, precisely calculated by the computer on
the ground, when it would fire the second stage.

Major Harry Lightfoot, fighter pilot, waited idly for the next move of
his ship. He could only fume inwardly. This was no way for an Apache
warrior to ride into battle. What would his grandfather think of a steed
which directed itself into battle and which could kill its rider, not by
accident, but in its normal operation? He should be actively hunting for
that missile, instead of lying here, strapped into his couch so he
wouldn't hurt himself, while the ship did all the work.

As for the missile, it was far to the north and slightly above the ship.
Without purpose of its own, but obedient to the laws of Mr. Newton and
to the wishes of its makers, it came on inexorably. It was a sleek
aluminum cylinder, glinting in the sunlight it had just recently
entered. On one end was a rocket-motor, now silent but still warm with
the memory of flaming gas that had poured forth from it only minutes
ago. On the other end was a sleek aerodynamic shape, the product of
thousands of hours of design work. It was designed to enter the
atmosphere at meteoric speed, but without burning up. It was intended to