The huge area of search extended from the Equator roughly up to the 60th Parallel, and from the China coast to 120 degrees West longitude; for, as Shaw had suggested, the recovery operation could be planned to take place from a ship on station, waiting for the capsule to be ditched near her. The searching vessels were steaming to their limits, the USAF land-based squadrons were flying right around the clock, but so far nothing, no clue of any sort, had been discovered and nothing in the least untoward had been reported by any of the patrols. * * * The President was on the line again from the White House, this time to enquire about the spacemen’s families. Klaber said, “They’re not too good, sir. You can’t blame them for that, I guess.” He didn’t add, out of consideration for the immense load the President was carrying, that Linda Morris hadn’t eaten since the first news of the fault had come through, and that now she was lying in her bed at the Schuster home, dry-eyed, without speaking, but with her lips moving ceaselessly in prayer and her body quite rigid.
