Path of Glory

He came wide awake, all at once, all of a piece. In the back of his mind was a black velvet backdrop. Red neon against it. XP-181. Just that. There didn’t have to be any other words there. You didn’t have to tell yourself that, after four days of taxiing it to hell-and-gone all over the lake bed, you had to yank it off the ground today.

So he lay there for a time and listened to his body. All of it. Big slow pump of the heart. Blood stir. He tasted the rest that had soaked into it. No burn in the throat. A good day. It had to be a good day.

He bounded out of bed. He was a little man of twenty-eight, trimbodied, cat-quick, with high hard cheekbones deep tanned, black hair parted low on the left, a crisp military mustache, the unforgiving eyes of a gambler.

He showered, shaved closely and carefully, trimmed the mustache a bit. He liked to spend a long time in the bathroom. He liked lotions and astringents and unguents. He liked his body and his reflexes, and he gave himself the attention any excellent piece of equipment should merit.

Laura had put bright insignia on the fresh uniform. Everything was right but the wing. It was too close to the top of the pocket. He moved it up an eighth of an inch, squared his shoulders and stood in front of the mirror. Gold leaves glinted.

“Hello there, Maje,” he said softly.

He went down and sat in the breakfast nook. Laura had heard him on the stairs and the moment he sat down she brought the tall glass of fresh orange juice. He looked at the kitchen clock and checked it with his watch. The clock was two minutes slow. It said three after ten.

“You must have kept the kid quiet for a change,” he said.

“He was good this morning,” she said and turned back to the stove.

Once upon a time there had been, within Laura, a quick hard passion. Then came three years of constantly weakening spirit and defiance. Now there was nothing. When she thought of it, which was very seldom, she wondered that a person could become nothing. If he were completely a man, you could fight him with a woman’s weapons. But he was more than a man. He was a controlled entity, with a man’s cruelty, a woman’s intuition, and the ruthlessness necessary to wield them cleverly, constantly.

So after a time you ceased fighting.

She brought him the eggs and bacon and turned away quickly because she did not like to see him eat. He was precise, surgical, almost dainty.

“Where is he?”

“I let him play outside. I told him to be quiet.”

“Oh. You told him to be quiet.”

She turned and looked at him. “When you go out, tell him he was good.”

“A reward, you might say?” he said, smiling.

“Never mind. Never mind,” Laura said.

He drank his coffee quickly, set the cup into the saucer without a sound. He dabbed his lips with the napkin and threw it behind him.

He went to her. “Going to wish me luck today?”

“Good luck, Stacey,” she said automatically.

He kissed her cheek. “Thank you, my dear. Thank you.”

In the hallway he put the cap at precisely the right angle and went out into the garage. The car top was down. He backed out. The boy stood by a tired rose bush, fingers in his mouth. Major Stacey Barnett tried an experiment. He turned and looked long in the other direction. When he glanced back, the boy was gone. What could you expect? He had Laura’s eyes. As spiritless as hers. Nothing to fight against, not any more.

It was four miles to the gates. Stacey drove with the effortless precision with which he did every physical thing.

He slowed at the gate. The guards stepped forward. As Stacey Barnett returned the salute, they waved him on. He turned off his motor.

“Sergeant, has there been a change in the security regulations?”

“Sir, I thought that since today’s the day you...”

“You’re not being paid to think, Sergeant. You’re being paid to check passes. Check mine.”

“Yes, sir.” He stepped to the side of the car and took the pass. He handed it back after looking at it carefully, stepped back and saluted.

Major Barnett returned the salute and drove through the gates. As he was getting out of the car near Administration after putting the top up against the sun’s heat, Palmer, the assistant adjutant came running out.

“Major Barnett, sir. The General wishes to see you.”

“Any special general?”

“General Balch, sir.”

“Thank you for being explicit, Lieutenant.”

General Balch was hunting for something in one of the lower drawers of his desk. He lifted his head and saw Barnett in a stiff salute. “For God’s sake, Stace, sit down and stop playing tin soldier.”

Barnett sat down, crossed his legs, adjusted the crease in his trousers and said coolly, “Lose something, General?”

“Out of cigars. Thought I had some in here. Well, skip it.” He grunted and pushed himself erect in the seat. His face was red. “How’s it going to go today?”

“I can’t tell much about characteristics until the aircraft is in flight.”

“Kinda thorny today, Stace, aren’t you? We want a Mach two out of this one.”

“If it’s built into the ship, you’ll get it, General.”

“Something I want to talk to you about. Lot of brass here today. I don’t care how you act toward them. That’s your career, not mine. But selected press boys will be on tap. Now don’t do a freeze job like last time. Understand?”

Barnett looked at his fingernails. “What do you want me to do?”

“Smile. Be affable if it kills you.”

“And get a big write-up as soon as the release is given, General?”

“Why not? Will it hurt you?”

“It might.”

“Explain that cryptic sentence, Major.”

“The Air Force, sir, has a strange habit of passing over officers who’ve gotten more than their share of publicity. As far as the press is concerned, I’m going to be the little man who flies the ship. They can make their story out of the ship.”

“They like color, Stace.”

“You’ve given them plenty of color, General.”

“Say the rest of it,” the General said in a taut voice.

“You made BG in forty-three. I can still see only one star, sir.”

“You S.O.B.,” General Balch said tonelessly. “Someday I’ll find out what makes you tick.”

Barnett smiled meagerly. “There’s no mystery. I just test aircraft. I’m a specialist. And I want all I can get out of it, sir.”

“Maybe you’ll get what Sheffer and Wadrith and Markson got.”

Barnett’s eyes narrowed a fraction of an inch. He tilted his head to one side as though listening. “Would you like me to think that you hope so, sir?”

“Get out of my office, Major.”

Barnett had his hand on the knob when Balch said, “Stace!”

“Sir?”

“Good luck today.”

“Thank you, sir.”

He walked through the white-hot sunlight, by the sprinklers that turned slowly in the middle of the small patches of green. He went into the Kanteen and took the end stool. Betty came over at once. He could see that she had been crying.

She came to him and said, “God, Stace, all night I couldn’t sleep thinking of how...”

“Shut your silly mouth,” he said with a trace of primness.

“I can’t help it, Stace.” She was a pretty brunette in a crisp yellow uniform, her mouth’ somewhat wide and slack.

“You’ve got to help it.”

“But I...”

He reached across the counter and gripped her arm. He saw her go white around the mouth with the pain. He smiled up into her eyes. “Either you stop, this minute, or the most you’ll ever see of me is what you can see right now across this counter, Betty.”

“You mean it, don’t you?” she whispered. “I’m all right if I keep my mouth shut and don’t make a fuss. I’m—”

He shrugged, let go of her arm, picked up a newspaper and opened it. She stood looking at the back of the paper a moment, rubbing her arm.

“I’m sorry, Stace,” she whispered.

“Then be good, will you?” he said absently. She brought him coffee. He folded the paper and put it where he could read.

“Will I see you, after?” she asked.

“You might. I don’t know yet.”

She watched him for a time and then went away. She wasn’t in sight when he paid the check and left. He went to his locker and put on white coveralls, walked through the passageway into the hangar where the XP-181 sat, a long, evil, silvery, gleaming thing with a hungry look about her scoops.

The men working on her were laughing. They hadn’t seen Barnett.

“Tell me — so I can laugh, too, boys,” he said gently. The laughter stopped at once. He looked up on the wing. “Come down here, Jessup.”

The lanky man swung himself down onto the concrete. There was a smudge of grease across his cheek. Jessup was a civilian.

“How far has she been checked?”

“Eighty percent, Major,” Jessup drawled.

“Hydraulic gear?”

“Took special care on that, Major.”

“Then check it again.”

Jessup flushed. “I just told you I checked it, Major.”

“Not with me looking over your shoulder, you didn’t. And just for luck I want the fluid all pumped out, strained and replaced.”

“Hell’s bells, Major! I can’t...”

“I’m perfectly willing to tell the General that I won’t attempt to fly it unless it’s checked according to my instructions, Jessup. Any questions?”

Jessup looked down into the Major’s cold eyes for long moments. Then his shoulders slumped. “I’ll get to it,” he said.

“You’ll get to it right now,” Barnett said quietly.

At five minutes of two Barnett rode in the jeep out to where the ship stood waiting. He was clad in the bulky pressure suit. The press was waiting. Washington brass stood around. As Barnett was helped up into the cockpit the last thing he heard before the canopy came down was one of the generals explaining — “Major Stacey Barnett. The best we’ve got.”

He fastened his connections for heat and air, checked oxygen, radio, mike position, note pad. He worked the controls. This was his small world. He fitted into it the way a small dark animal will fit into its winter burrow.

At three minutes past two, three minutes behind schedule, there was an indescribable sound. Part roar, part scream, part whistle. It was clearly audible over a circle with a five mile radius.

They stood and they watched. All of them watched the incredible silver dot climbing on its twin flames. General Balch watched with his lips sucked hard against his teeth. Jessup watched, gently thudding a wrench against his thigh. Lieutenant Palmer watched without expression. Betty stood out in the sunlight, her fists hard against her breast. The sergeant at the gate watched, looked away to spit, found the climbing mote of silver and watched some more. Laura stood in the front yard, her hand shading empty eyes. The boy stood in the driveway, ten feet from his mother.

He had looked where she pointed, and seeing it, he made a little sound in his throat.

Everyone who watched had a look of waiting. Quiet waiting.

And then the small boy, suddenly, said, “Ah!” It is the sound that children make all over the world when the rocket, reaching apex, bursts with a hard white light.

He grinned excitedly at his mother. She had not moved, except to fold down the sunshield hand so that now it covered her eyes.