Progress Report

It seemed to Colonel Jennings that the air conditioning unit merely
washed the hot air around him without lowering the temperature from that
outside. He knew it was partly psychosomatic, compounded of the view of
the silvery spire of the test ship through the heatwaves of the Nevada
landscape and the knowledge that this was the day, the hour, and the
minutes.

The final test was at hand. The instrument ship was to be sent out into
space, controlled from this sunken concrete bunker, to find out if the
flimsy bodies of men could endure there.

Jennings visualized other bunkers scattered through the area,
observation posts, and farther away the field headquarters with open
telephone lines to the Pentagon, and beyond that a world waiting for
news of the test--and not everyone wishing it well