Astounding Science Fiction (British edition) — page 37: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

PIONEER 35 pain in his leg as he remembered the petty bickering; the day he pulled a botch on a test job and was nearly killed because he’d fought half the night with her; the iron-clad edicts on what he could and could not do; how he must not mess up the ash trays in the living room because they were for guests; the lurking fear that he might not say the right thing; the way she wheedled Tommy to get her way with him; the nights her emotional blackmail had caused Tommy to leave the table in tears, unable to finish his supper; the repeated statement that maybe Tommy would amount to something if he tried and took her advice. Tommy was going to amount to something, but not what she thought. He would grow as straight and tall as the rockets he would fly to the far places and worlds. He would be doing what he wanted. He would not be held down nor directed. He would make his own decisions, and Dick would back them up as long as he could. ‘Three hundred miles. Borneo ahead, just peeking through the mist on the curved horizon. As he swung out over the Pacific he spotted weather ahead. But the Nomad wouidn’t take rough seas. He was coming in dead stick, and had to have smooth weather. The Pacific is a big ocean and the bad weather was behind him in a matter of minutes. His approach rate was beginning to increase now. Down and down in a shallow curve went the Nomad—tail first. New Guinea whisked by to the south. At fifty miles altitude, Dick wished he had a towel. He was dripping with sweat, and the cabin was getting un- comfortably warm. Atmospheric fric- tion was starting to build up the heat of the Nomad’s skin. He awaited the flip-over with ap- prehension. Would the ship turn around naturally when her fins took hold, or would the strain snap her in two? Twenty-five miles up, he got the answer. There was a slight shudder through the ship, and something groaned. From aft he detected a vibra- tion; high-speed tail flutter. Must correct that next time, he thought. The flip was slow and graceful, the Nomad coming about easily. Nose first and with the full effect of her stream- lining, she darted downward. The cabin grew almost intolerably hot, and Dick watched the leading edges of the wings grow cherry red with the heat of the shock wave. When the Nomad started to yaw violently at fifteen miles, he was ready for it. It was noth- ing new to him. He fought it by hand, not trusting an autopilot with- out gyros. The pain in his leg made him groggy, and he wished he’d been the hundred-and-first man into space instead of the first. At one hundred fifty thousand feet, he was still making several thousand knots and trusting the lower strata of air to kill that speed for him. But at seventy thousand feet, as he was jockeying to kill more speed, a heavy bank of clouds swept over the horizon, toward him. Typhoon! The Nomad could not hope to plunge through even the upper parts of a dis- turbance like that and come out in one piece. He hauled back on the wheel. The Nomad, still possessed of a speed near Mach 2, climbed sharply. He blacked out, and fought his way back to consciousness through a red haze of pain and nausea. The Nomad arched easily over the typhoon area, clearing it by several miles. When Dick nosed her down again, she assumed a much sharper angle of dive. He let her go, fearing a high-speed stall if he tried to stretch the glide. As he came in to look for a landing spot, the Pacific was living up to its connicloooks«c© inn