Into a New Universe
I hurtled up the companionway, followed by the clangor of the shutting air-lock hatch. Thirty years since I had flown, yet all the old, hard won spacemanship tingled at my finger-tips as I burst into the control room and saw before me a gleaming bank of levers and fuel wheels.
Jay’s staccato report met me, from the speaker disc above the gaugeboard. “All tight, sir.” Just as in the years when I taught him the secrets of the void.
“Make it so, mister,” I acknowledged in the unforgotten jargon. “Stand by for the blast-off.” Not for nothing had I conned the plans of this latest product of the spaceship engineers, assuaging nostalgia in vicarious flight. There was no lost motion now as I dived for the protective couch, snapped straps around me, and jammed down the main-f
