Path of Glory

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He came wide awake, all at once, all of a piece. In the back of his mind was a black velvet backdrop. Red neon against it. XP-181. Just that. There didn’t have to be any other words there. You didn’t have to tell yourself that, after four days of taxiing it to hell-and-gone all over the lake bed, you had to yank it off the ground today.

So he lay there for a time and listened to his body. All of it. Big slow pump of the heart. Blood stir. He tasted the rest that had soaked into it. No burn in the throat. A good day. It had to be a good day.

He bounded out of bed. He was a little man of twenty-eight, trimbodied, cat-quick, with high hard cheekbones deep tanned, black hair parted low on the left, a crisp military mustache, the unforgiving eyes of a gambler.

He showered, shaved closely and carefully, trimmed the mustache a bit. He liked to spend a long time in the bathroom. He liked lotions and astringents and unguents. He liked his body and his reflexes, and he gave himself the attention any excellent piece of equipment should merit.

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