Rockets, rhymes & recipes
			Ribbons flutter in the breeze
			Flaring colors, feelgood times
			Rockets, recipes & rhymes

TWO MILLION! Ain't it NICE to have so many well wishers. Probably came to see us crash and burn. Brought hot dogs and marshmallows to toast over the fire.

John Davies had pushed every available press secretarial button to get maximum publicity for this ... STUNT. That's what the press had called it -- Cleet Williams, in that last press conference, in his friendly but insinuating manner -- "But Mister President, this is really just a stunt, isn't it? If you're honest, what practical purpose does it serve?"

Logan Arron Styles had answered in lofty phrases about how this was an important symbol, an act that would open doors to the future, but had thought, even as he spoke, Yeah, you got it basically right, Cleet, it's a stunt. And it'll probably get me a lot of votes -- if it doesn't get me killed.

The Kennedy began the roll program, turning to align along an invisible black line -- the target azimuth -- painted over the cold blue waters of the Atlantic ocean.

Posthumous votes don't get counted.

Could he have backed out? Absolutely not. He was committed when he uttered that phrase at the Academy: "I will be your first President to visit space." Failure to deliver on that one simple promise, short of an absolutely clear-cut technical problem, would have been political suicide. A minute ago he could have shouted through the intercom to hold -- and they would have held, absolutely, no questions. His Presidency would have been over then and there.

But he had not. He had smiled to his right at Micki Stalton -- mission specialist -- strapped in her seat beside him on the flight deck.

If you're gonna die, you're gonna die. Got no choice in the matter. I pissed that away in Colorado.

He'd listened to the count, down to the last seconds when Air Force Colonel Tom Hadorn, in the Commander's seat, said over the intercom, "Fasten your seat belt, Mr. President. This is going to be a great ride."

Except for the vibration and noise, the lift-off was easy. Shortly Hadorn announced, mainly for his benefit, that they were accelerating through two "g"s. Logan raised his left elbow experimentally a few inches above the arm rest, then let it drop back heavily. Marcee, you got the conn. Mind the store while I'm gone. There had been considerable contention about procedures for succession in the event of -- well -- his demise. Both Marcee and Mister "Speaka-of-the-House" had been briefed on the fine points of the rules of succession should Logan be killed, incapacitated, stranded, kidnapped, or vivisected in orbit.

Logan watched as Micki cycled through displays on the console to her right. She and the Pilot, Marine Lieutenant Colonel Alex Wood, spoke tersely over the intercom. She smiled reassuringly at Logan. He reached with effort across the deepening acceleration chasm between their seats to gently pat her arm. "Sumpthin', huh?" he grunted.

Logan occupied the Payload Specialist's seat. "I'm the payload," he had joked, "and there's nobody better qualified to operate it than me."

"That's the best seat in the house," Hadorn had told him. It was almost in the center of the flight deck, about four feet behind the large instrument panel that occupied all the floor space between the Commander on the left and the Pilot on the right. Logan had an unobstructed view between them through the two center windows. Unfortunately, the only thing to see at the moment was a dark blue sky, rapidly turning black. The vibration administered a deep body massage as the "g"s continued to build. The instruments several feet ahead rattled in their consoles. Ahead? Hell, ABOVE. How much will they take before they rip loose and bean us? Logan closed his eyes but vertigo and imagination quickly generated disaster -- the machine began yawing broadside, about to break into twenty pieces. He glanced quickly over, but Micki was not alarmed.

This enormous hell-fire monster that simultaneously cradled, entrapped, and threatened Logan, lay back steeply now, inverted, and he watched an upside-down horizon slide across the screen of the small monitor mounted especially for him on the back of Wood's seat. Now there was a jolt and lessening of weight while a swirl of debris scurried across the view, followed by the lumbering, oblong form of the left solid booster beginning its lazy tumbling journey back into the world Logan was departing. With the boosters went the vibration that resulted from ragged burning of the solid fuel, and now the glassy smooth thrust of the liquid hydrogen-oxygen main engines gave them an elevator ride, constantly increasing in acceleration. Logan relaxed slightly -- about the amount of slacking of a dental patient when the drilling stops -- and loosened his grip on the arm rests.

Doctor Roald Fent in the windowless mid-deck cabin directly below him, whose principal duty was the monitoring and maintenance of Logan's medical well-being, noted the decrease in heart rate and breathed a small sigh of relief.

To Fent's right, Doctor Victor Aronson -- physicist and Principal Investigator of the experiment whose purpose was the exploration of ramifications of the newly discovered "Aronson effect" -- was too absorbed in a disciplined mental cataloging and shuffling of experiences to have any remarkable emotions other than a persistent, diffuse sense of excitement.

To Fent's left, Army Colonel Daryl Hatchcombe -- Communications Officer, Special Aide to the President, and operator of the sensitive and highly classified Presidential Encoding Gear -- grunted stoically against the acceleration. An outward calm belied an inward turbulence. A phrase -- "Duty, honor, country" -- played through his mind, a mantra against a mental churning of doubts, regrets, and "might-have-been's" that exceeded the worst noisy chaos of the boosters moments before.

The Kennedy approached the target state vector at three "g"s of acceleration, and now the flight computers milked down engine thrust, searching for a cutoff within a fraction of a knot of the desired speed. Logan experienced the strong illusion of the shuttle slowing to a stop in mid flight; he felt a transition from being pushed away from the nose of the shuttle to being pulled toward it. The sensation lasted a few seconds, and then in the deafening silence of ... SHUTDOWN ... he felt himself -- despite the noise: a slight hiss of air, the sporadic clamor of flight deck mechanical equipment, the interminable chatter of the intercom -- despite these distractions, Logan Arron Styles, floating loosely in his harness, felt an incongruous moment of reverence; of revelation; of almost weeping joy; of worship in the silent cathedral of space. In some sure sense, he realized that he had come home.