It was as if all his life had been leading to this moment. Gray and green and streaked with brown, the Earth hung off in space behind him, beautiful beyond description, beautiful beyond all the tridimensional pictures he had seen at the Academy.
Ahead, the bleak speckled vault of space. Far away and off to the right he could see the cold white face of the moon. The path of his ellipse would not be completed; instead, it would meet the moon while the moon swung on its timeless journey around Earth. Then he must turn the ship around and use his rocket-tubes as brakes.
But all that was so much technical detail.
He was in space!
Yes, all his life he had waited for this moment. His years of hope and dreaming and yearning, his glorious existence at the Academy. Even the bitter disappointment
