The rocket was on the way up, but Professor Lightning didn't seem to care. Outside the cooktent Wrout flapped his arms and, on that signal, Seaman started up the big electric band, whooping it up with John Philip Sousa for openers, while all over the midway the lights snapped on, big whites and yellows, reds, greens, purples and dusky violets framing, in a titillating dimness, the front flap of the girlie tent. The outside talkers were busy outside the spectacle tents like Wicks' Hell Drivers, Biggest Auto Show in Fifty States -- outside the grind shows, the eats, the rides: "Here and now, for the fourth part of one single dollar bill, the most amazing . . ." ". . . Terrifying and strange beings from the farthest reaches of the Earth who will exhibit . . ." ". . . Dances learned at the Court of the Sultan, Ay-rab dances right here, right on the inside, for only -- "

And the crowd, filing in, laughed and chattered and shrieked on swooping rides, the Great Crane, the Space Race, the Merry-Go-Round and the Horses, threw down money to win a kewpie doll, a Hawaiian lei, a real life-size imitation scale model of Luna in three real dimensions . . . living it up on the first show, while the rocket climbed on and out, and bubbled excitement in the blood.

Something just awful was about to happen. Something terrible -- or worse. But Professor Lightning still didn't care.