Card Sharks

minutes. Vidrine said, 'You're full with regular and super.'

'Roger. Disconnect.'

The exhilaration I had felt upon Enloe's invitation had worn off, a casualty, I first thought, of clear air turbulence, the smell of J-4 jet fuel, and the sight of Guinan. Or worrying that I was surrounded by wild card freaks.

Then I realized what the problem was: no one seemed to be having any fun. Enloe said little, confining himself to cryptic callouts of altitude, fuel, speed. Dearborn, the communicator for the flight, was surprisingly terse. Only Vidrine and the chase pilots — who were making a bet involving beers at Pancho's place — added a human touch. It certainly had none of the rakish charm of the heroes of the Tak World novels, who were always bickering and stabbing each other in the back. I could have been listening to a couple of guys tearing down an engine block for a '49 Chevy.

The X-11A dropped several hundred feet behind us while the tanker rolled to the right. Dearborn counted down. At zero a tongue of flame shot out of the 11A. It was out of sight before I realized it.

Only then did I remember where I was … six miles over the California desert, refueling the world's first real spaceship. It went so far beyond the amazing that we had to invent new ways of describing — and appreciating — the experience.

There was a dicey moment during Enloe's altitude run … some pogo effect in one of the rocket's pumps. He had to shut down at 17 seconds and wasn't able to crack the 100,000 foot barrier.

'Next time we'll go all the way,' he said. I didn't hear a trace of disappointment in his voice.

The X-11A was on the ground before we were, though Enloe would be tied up in debrief through lunch. That was where Rowe and the rest of the team would be, so I was eager to join them.

But Margaret was waiting for me as I walked away from the tank. 'What did you think?' she asked brightly.

'I think we're just about ready to go.'

'I mean Casey. She raised an eyebrow. Only then did I realize she was inviting me to picture the two of them in bed.

'I've got work to do.' I started walking away.

'I know. Rowe sent me to pick you up.' She opened the car door for me. When I hesitated, she said: 'Get in. Don't be such a baby.'

She was amazing. I told her. 'I'm not used to talking about things like this.'

'Sex? Or aces?'

'Neither.'

'You'll learn.'

We drove in silence for a minute. 'Rowe wanted me to give you a message.'

'I'm listening.'

'He says that unless there are any further technical problems, we'll attempt a launch on May 5th.'

'That's great.'

'He also says the Soviets announced today that they will try to put a man into orbit tomorrow morning.'

(From The Los Angeles Herald, Thursday, April 14, 1958:)

RUSSIAN ROCKET FIZZLES!

Red Spaceman Lucky to Be Alive!

Moscow (AP). The first attempt to put a man into space ended prematurely today with a huge rocket explosion, according to TASS, the official Soviet news agency. The pilot, Konstantin Feoktistov, was lifted to safety inside his vehicle, which was equipped with its own parachute.

The accident took place at the Soviet rocket research center at Kapustin Yar, on the Volga River just east of Stalingrad. Previous unmanned Soviet rockets, some of them carrying orbital satellites, have been launched from this site since 1947, under the direction of space scientists Sergei Korolev and Werner von Braun.

According to TASS, Feoktistov, a 32-year-old engineer said to be a protege of Korolev, boarded the bell- shaped Sever spacecraft atop its giant R-11 rocket at 7:30 local time. He wore a special protective spacesuit for the mission, which was to see him orbit the earth three times.

Liftoff of the R-11, said to stand 12 stories tall and weigh over a million pounds, took place shortly after nine. The R-11's twenty-four first stage engines ignited, lifting Sever (which means 'North') into the sky.

But at an altitude of nine thousand feet, as the rocket was passing through the area of maximum dynamic pressure, there was an explosion. Automatic devices aboard Sever ignited an escape rocket mounted forward of Feoktistov's cabin, pulling it free of the fireball.

Sever then descended by parachute into the swamp five miles east of the launch site, as debris from the exploding rocket rained down around it. Reached by rescuers within minutes, Feoktistov was reported to be injured, but not seriously. He is rumored to be convalescing at a resort on the Black Sea.

TASS quoted von Braun as comparing the failure to those of the World War II V-2 …

(From the notebooks of Edgar Thayer)

We got the news of the Soviet failure at Muroc the same way everybody else did … from the radio. For everyone's convenience they had moved me from the motel in Rosamond to the Tomlin visiting officer's quarters — logically enough, seeing as how I would only be around for a month — which left me twenty miles closer to the action. Which on that particular night was at Pancho's Happy Bottom Riding Club, just west of the base.

I had spent the rest of the test day in debriefing and can't remember who suggested that we have a Soviet Watch at the bar. It might have been Al Dearborn, who, it was said, had run up such a tab that Pancho herself had had to make him a part owner in the joint. I do remember asking if Dr. Rowe would join us, only to told that Rowe probably didn't know where Pancho's was.

Anyway, we were there early, before six, ostensibly for steaks: Dearborn, Sampson, Grissom, Meadows, Ridley, a brace of test engineers, and me. Enloe and Guinan showed up soon after. It was the single wildest evening I have ever spent, though it began innocently enough, just beers with Dearborn.

Midway through the third Budweiser, I got the nerve to ask him how he managed to handle the pressure … not knowing who was going to make the first flight.

'Listen, buddy, I do know.'

'Don't keep me in suspense.'

'You're looking at him.'' He saw my amused disbelief. 'Look, I'll prove it to you. Give me a quarter.' I produced a half-dollar. He took it and flipped it. 'Call it.'

'Heads.'

Heads of it was. In fact, Dearborn got it right fourteen times in a row. 'Pure luck,' I said.

He winked. 'Bingo. That's me: Mr. Lucky. Fall in shit, come up smelling like roses. It might not be pretty, but it got me where I am today. Another beer?'

Through the haze of my growing intoxication, I realized that Dearborn, too, was an ace. I didn't know whether to be shocked, or just amused. In those days, to use a term from another circumstance, aces were largely in the closet. Yet, just like people in those other circumstances, they were everywhere you looked … if you looked closely.

At Muroc, however, it seemed that no one cared. Or that none of the aces cared if anyone cared. As if the rules had been suspended.

(I just wondered what Sampson's wild card talent was.)

True to his reputation, five minutes later Dearborn caused some local talent to materialize, two blondes and a brunette, who made themselves right at home on various laps. One of them had brought a camera, an Argus, I recall, and they were posing for photos with the famous pilot.

By seven I was so drunk I was necking with blonde number one on the pool table, to the raucous cheers of