The Saturn VB was inching its way upward past the launch tower, almost skittishly, its automated controls swiveling its five first-stage engines to correct for wind shear. Right, left, forward, back, in a series of spasmodic jerks hard enough to bruise her.

No simulation had even hinted at the violence. It was like riding out of an explosion.

“Access arm,” Stone called. “Clear of the tower.”

John Young, Houston capcom for the launch, came on line.

“Ares, Houston. Copy. You are clear of the tower.”

York felt a lurch forward. The whole stack had pitched over; she was sitting up in her couch, the huge rattling thrust of the first stage pushing at her back.

“Houston, we have a good roll program,” Stone said.

“Roger the roll.”

The Saturn was arcing over the Florida coast, toward the Atlantic.

Down there on the beaches, she knew, children had written huge good luck messages into the Florida sand. GODSPEED ARES. York looked up and to her right, toward the tiny square window there. But there was nothing to see. They were cocooned; the boost protective cover, a solid cone, lay over the Command Module, blocking out the daylight.

The Command Module’s interior was the size of a small car. It was small, dingy, mechanical, metallic. Very 1960s, York thought. The walls, painted gray and yellow, were studded with gauges, dials, control switches, and circuit breakers. There were scraps of notes, from the crew to themselves, and emergency checklists, and hundreds of tiny round-cornered squares of blue Velcro stuck to the walls.

The three crew couches were just metal frames with canvas supports. York lay on her back, in the Command Module’s right-hand seat. Stone, as commander, was in the left-hand seat; Ralph Gershon was in the center couch. The main hatch was behind Gershon’s head, with big chunky levers on its inside, like a submarine’s hatch.