ok off
with a whooshing roar which even her thick walls could not mute.

The Technos, crushed down into their form-fitting cushions by three G's
of acceleration, clenched their teeth and took it.

Higher! Faster! The rocket shivered and trembled as it hit the wall at
the velocity of sound, but it did not pause.

Higher! Faster! Higher! Fifty miles high. One hundred ... five hundred
... a thousand ... fifteen hundred ... two thousand! Half a radius--the
designated altitude at which the Chicago Contingent would go into
action.

Acceleration was cut to zero. The Technos, breathing deeply in relief,
donned peculiarly-goggled helmets and set up their panels.

Kinnison stared into his plate with everything he could put into his
optic nerve. This was not like the Ball, in which the lights were
electronically placed, automatically controlled, clear, sharp, and
steady. This was radar. A radar considerably different from that of
1948, of course, and greatly improved, but still pitifully inadequate in
dealing with objects separated by hundreds of miles and traveling at
velocities of thousands of miles per hour!

Nor was this like the practice cruises, in which the targets had been
harmless barrels or equally harmless dirigible rockets. This was the
real thing; the targets today would be lethal objects indeed. Practice
gunnery, with only a place in the Proficiency List at stake, had been
exciting enough: this was too exciting--_much_ too exciting--for the
keenness of brain and the quickness and steadiness of eye and of hand so
soon to be required.

A target? Or was it? Yes--three or four of them!

"Target One--Zone Ten," a quiet voice spoke into Kinnison's ear and one
of the white specks upon his plate turned yellowish green. The same
words, the same lights, were heard and seen by the eleven other Technos
of Sector A, of which Kinnison, by virtue of standing at the top of his
Combat Rocket's Proficiency List, was Sector Chief. He knew that the
voice was that of Sector A's Fire Control Officer, whose duty it was to
determine, from courses, velocities, and all other data to be had from
ground and lofty observers, the order in which his Sector's targets
should be eliminated. And Sector A, an imaginary but sharply-defined
cone, was in normal maneuvering the hottest part of the sky. Fire
Control's "Zone Ten" had informed him that the object was at extreme
range and hence there would be plenty of time. Nevertheless:

"Lawrence