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Python Machine
Learning Blueprints
Python Machine Learning
Blueprints
Copyright © 2016 Packt Publishing

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced,

stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by
any means, without the prior written permission of the
publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embedded in
critical articles or reviews.

Every effort has been made in the preparation of this book to

ensure the accuracy of the information presented. However, the
information contained in this book is sold without warranty,
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Publishing, and its dealers and distributors will be held liable for
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First published: July 2016

Production reference: 1270716

Published by Packt Publishing Ltd.

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ISBN 978-1-78439-475-2

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Credits

Author Copy Editor

Alexander T. Combs Priyanka Ravi

Reviewer Project Coordinator

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About the Author
Alexander T. Combs is an experienced data scientist,
strategist, and developer with a background in financial data
extraction, natural language processing and generation, and
quantitative and statistical modeling. He is currently a full-time
lead instructor for a data science immersive program in New
York City.

Writing a book is truly a massive undertaking that would not be

possible without the support of others. I would like to thank my
family for their love and encouragement and Jocelyn for her
patience and understanding. I owe all of you tremendously.
About the Reviewer
Kushal Khandelwal is a data scientist and a full-stack
developer. His interests include building scalable machine
learning and image processing software applications. He is
adept at coding in Python and contributes actively to various
open source projects. He is currently serving as the Head of
technology at Truce.in, a farmer-centric start-up where he
is building scalable web applications to assist farmers.
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Preface
Machine learning is rapidly becoming a fixture in our data-
driven world. It is relied upon in fields as diverse as robotics
and medicine to retail and publishing. In this book, you will
learn how to build real-world machine learning applications step
by step.

Working through easy-to-understand projects, you will learn

how to process various types of data and how and when to
apply different machine learning techniques such as supervised
or unsupervised learning.

Each of the projects in this book provides educational as well as

practical value. For example, you'll learn how to use clustering
techniques to find bargain airfares and how to use linear
regression to find a cheap apartment. This book will teach you
how to use machine learning to collect, analyze, and act on
massive quantities of data in an approachable, no-nonsense
manner.
What this book covers
Chapter 1, The Python Machine Learning Ecosystem, delves into
Python, which has a deep and active developer community, and
many of these developers come from the scientific community
as well. This has provided Python with a rich array of libraries
for scientific computing. In this chapter, we will discuss the
features of these key libraries and how to prepare your
environment to best utilize them.

Chapter 2, Build an App to Find Underpriced Apartments,

guides us to build our first machine learning application, and we
begin with a minimal but practical example: building an
application to identify underpriced apartments. By the end of
this chapter, we will create an application that will make finding
the right apartment a bit easier.

Chapter 3, Build an App to Find Cheap Airfares, demonstrates

how to build an application that continually monitors fare
pricing. Once an anomalous price appears, our app will
generate an alert that we can quickly act on.

Chapter 4, Forecast the IPO Market using Logistic Regression,

shows how we can use machine learning to decide which IPOs
are worth a closer look and which ones we may want to skip.

Chapter 5, Create a Custom Newsfeed, covers how to build a

system that understands your taste in news and will send you a
personally tailored newsletter each day.

Chapter 6, Predict whether Your Content Will Go Viral, examines

some of the most shared content and attempts to find the
common elements that differentiate it from the content that
people are less willing to share.

Chapter 7, Forecast the Stock Market with Machine Learning,

discusses how to build and test a trading strategy. There are
countless pitfalls to avoid when trying to devise your own
system, and it is quite nearly an impossible task. However, it
can be a lot of fun, and sometimes, it can even be profitable.

Chapter 8, Build an Image Similarity Engine, helps you

construct an advanced, image-based, deep learning application.
We will also cover deep learning algorithms to understand why
they are so important and why there is such a hype
surrounding them.

Chapter 9, Build a Chatbot, demonstrates how to construct a

chatbot from scratch. Along the way, you'll learn more about
the history of the field and its future prospects.

Chapter 10, Build a Recommendation Engine, explores the

different varieties of recommendation systems. We'll see how
they're implemented commercially and how they work. We will
also implement our own recommendation engine to find GitHub
repos.
What you need for this
book
All you need is Python 3.x and a desire to build real-world
machine learning projects. You can refer to the detailed
software list provided along with the code files of this book.
Who this book is for
This book targets Python programmers, data scientists, and
architects with a good knowledge of data science and all those
who want to build complete Python-based machine learning
systems.
Conventions
In this book, you will find a number of text styles that
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some examples of these styles and an explanation of their
meaning.

Code words in text, database table names, folder names,

filenames, file extensions, pathnames, dummy URLs, user
input, and Twitter handles are shown as follows: "This can be
done by calling .corr() on our DataFrame."

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<category>
<pattern>I LIKE TURTLES</pattern>
<template>I feel like this whole <set name="topic">turle</
thing could be a problem. What do you like about them?</te
</category>

Any command-line input or output is written as follows:

sp = pd.read_csv(r'/Users/alexcombs/Downloads/spy.csv')

sp.sort_values('Date', inplace=True)

New terms and important words are shown in bold. Words

that you see on the screen, for example, in menus or dialog
boxes, appear in the text like this: "Right-click on the page and
click on Inspect element."
NOTE
Warnings or important notes appear in a box like this.

TIP
Tips and tricks appear like this.
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Chapter 1. The Python
Machine Learning
Ecosystem
Machine learning is rapidly changing our world. As the
centerpiece of artificial intelligence, it is difficult to go a day
without reading how it will transform our lives. Some argue it
will lead us into a Singularity-style techno-utopia. Others
suggest we are headed towards a techno-pocalypse marked by
constant battles with job-stealing robots and drone death
squads. But while the pundits may enjoy discussing these
hyperbolic futures, the more mundane reality is that machine
learning is rapidly becoming a fixture of our daily lives. Through
subtle but progressive improvements in how we interact with
computers and the world around us, machine learning is quietly
improving our lives.

If you shop at online retailers such as Amazon.com, use

streaming music or movie services such as Spotify or Netflix, or
even just perform a Google search, you have encountered a
machine learning application. The data generated by the users
of these services is collected, aggregated, and fed into models
that improve the services by creating tailored experiences for
each user.

Now is an ideal time to dive into developing machine learning

applications, and as you will discover, Python is an ideal choice
with which to develop these applications. Python has a deep
and active developer community, and many of these developers
come from the scientific community as well. This has provided
Python with a rich array of libraries for scientific computing. In
this book, we will discuss and use a number of these libraries
from this Python scientific stack.

In the chapters that follow, we'll learn step by step how to build
a wide variety of machine learning applications. But before we
begin in earnest, we'll spend the remainder of this chapter
discussing the features of these key libraries and how to
prepare your environment to best utilize them.

We'll cover the following topics in this chapter:

The data science/machine learning workflow

Libraries for each stage of the workflow

Setting up your environment

The data science/machine

learning workflow
Building machine learning applications, while similar in many
respects to the standard engineering paradigm, differs in one
crucial way: the need to work with data as a raw material. The
success of a data project will, in large part, depend on the
quality of the data that you acquired as well as how it's
handled. And because working with data falls into the domain
of data science, it is helpful to understand the data science
workflow:
The process proceeds through these six steps in the following
order: acquisition, inspection and exploration, cleaning and
preparation, modeling, evaluation, and finally deployment.
There is often the need to circle back to prior steps, such as
when inspecting and preparing the data or when evaluating and
modeling, but the process at a high level can be described as
shown in the preceding diagram.

Let's now discuss each step in detail.

Acquisition
Data for machine learning applications can come from any
number of sources; it may be e-mailed as a CSV file, it may
come from pulling down server logs, or it may require building
a custom web scraper. The data may also come in any number
of formats. In most cases, it will be text-based data, but as
we'll see, machine learning applications may just as easily be
built utilizing images or even video files. Regardless of the
format, once the data is secured, it is crucial to understand
what's in the data—as well as what isn't.

Inspection and exploration

Once the data has been acquired, the next step is to inspect
and explore it. At this stage, the primary goal is to sanity-check
the data, and the best way to accomplish this is to look for
things that are either impossible or highly unlikely. As an
example, if the data has a unique identifier, check to see that
there is indeed only one; if the data is price-based, check
whether it is always positive; and whatever the data type,
check the most extreme cases. Do they make sense? A good
practice is to run some simple statistical tests on the data and
visualize it. Additionally, it is likely that some data is missing or
incomplete. It is critical to take note of this during this stage as
it will need to be addressed it later during the cleaning and
preparation stage. Models are only as good as the data that
goes into them, so it is crucial to get this step right.

Cleaning and preparation

When all the data is in order, the next step is to place it in a
format that is amenable to modeling. This stage encompasses a
number of processes such as filtering, aggregating, imputing,
and transforming. The type of actions that are necessary will be
highly dependent on the type of data as well as the type of
library and algorithm utilized. For example, with natural-
language-based text, the transformations required will be very
different from those required for time series data. We'll see a
number of examples of these types of transformations
throughout the book.

Modeling
Once the data preparation is complete, the next phase is
modeling. In this phase, an appropriate algorithm is selected
and a model is trained on the data. There are a number of best
practices to adhere to during this stage, and we will discuss
them in detail, but the basic steps involve splitting the data into
training, testing, and validation sets. This splitting up of the
data may seem illogical—especially when more data typically
yields better models—but as we'll see, doing this allows us to
get better feedback on how the model will perform in the real
world, and prevents us from the cardinal sin of modeling:
overfitting.
Discovering Diverse Content Through
Random Scribd Documents
The Project Gutenberg eBook of First on the
Moon
This ebook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States
and most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no
restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it
under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this
ebook or online at www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the
United States, you will have to check the laws of the country where
you are located before using this eBook.

Title: First on the Moon

Author: Jeff Sutton

Release date: July 17, 2013 [eBook #43235]

Most recently updated: October 23, 2024

Language: English

Credits: Produced by Greg Weeks, Mary Meehan and the Online

Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net

*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK FIRST ON THE

MOON ***
FIRST on the MOON
 by JEFF SUTTON
ACE BOOKS, INC.
1120 Avenue of the Americas
New York 36, N.Y.
FIRST ON THE MOON
Copyright ©, 1958, by Ace Books, Inc.
All Rights Reserved
Printed in U. S. A.

To Sandy
 SUICIDE RACE TO LUNA
The four men had been scrutinized, watched, investigated, and
intensively trained for more than a year. They were the best
men to be found for that first, all-important flight to the Moon—
the pioneer manned rocket that would give either the East or
the West control over the Earth.
Yet when the race started, Adam Crag found that he had a
saboteur among his crew ... a traitor! Such a man could give the
Reds possession of Luna, and thereby dominate the world it
circled.
Any one of the other three could be the hidden enemy, and if he
didn't discover the agent soon—even while they were roaring on
rocket jets through outer space—then Adam Crag, his
expedition, and his country would be destroyed!
 PROLOGUE
One of the rockets was silver; three were ashen gray. Each nested in
a different spot on the great Western Desert. All were long, tapered,
sisters except for color. In a way they represented the first, and last,
of an era, with exotic propellants, a high mass ratio and three-stage
design. Yet they were not quite alike. One of the sisters had within
her the artifacts the human kind needed for life—a space cabin high
in the nose. The remaining sisters were drones, beasts of burden,
but beasts which carried scant payloads considering their bulk.
One thing they had in common—destination. They rested on their
launch pads, with scaffolds almost cleared, heads high and proud.
Soon they would flash skyward, one by one, seeking a relatively
small haven on a strange bleak world. The world was the moon; the
bleak place was called Arzachel, a crater—stark, alien, with tall cliffs
brooding over an ashy plain.
Out on the West Coast a successor to the sisters was shaping up—a
great ship of a new age, with nuclear drive and a single stage. But
the sisters could not wait for their successor. Time was running out.
 CHAPTER I
The room was like a prison—at least to Adam Crag. It was a square
with a narrow bunk, a battered desk, two straight-back chairs and
little else. Its one small window overlooked the myriad quonsets and
buildings of Burning Sands Base from the second floor of a nearly
empty dormitory.
There was a sentry at the front of the building, another at the rear.
Silent alert men who never spoke to Crag—seldom acknowledged his
movements to and from the building—yet never let a stranger
approach the weathered dorm without sharp challenge. Night and
day they were there. From his window he could see the distant
launch site and, by night, the batteries of floodlights illumining the
metal monster on the pad. But now he wasn't thinking of the rocket.
He was fretting; fuming because of a call from Colonel Michael
Gotch.
"Don't stir from the room," Gotch had crisply ordered on the phone.
He had hung up without explanation. That had been two hours
before.
Crag had finished dressing—he had a date—idly wondering what
was in the Colonel's mind. The fretting had only set in when, after
more than an hour, Gotch had failed to show. Greg's liberty had
been restricted to one night a month. One measly night, he thought.
Now he was wasting it, tossing away the precious hours. Waiting.
Waiting for what?
"I'm a slave," he told himself viciously; "slave to a damned bird
colonel." His date wouldn't wait—wasn't the waiting kind. But he
couldn't leave.
He stopped pacing long enough to look at himself in the cracked
mirror above his desk. The face that stared back was lean, hard,
unlined—skin that told of wind and sun, not brown nor bronze but
more of a mahogany red. Just now the face was frowning. The eyes
were wide-spaced, hazel, the nose arrogant and hawkish. A thin
white scar ran over one cheek ending.
His mind registered movement behind him. He swiveled around,
flexing his body, balanced on his toes, then relaxed, slightly
mortified.
Gotch—Colonel Michael Gotch—stood just inside the door eyeing him
tolerantly. A flush crept over Crag's face. Damn Gotch and his velvet
feet, he thought. But he kept the thought concealed.
The expression on Gotch's face was replaced by a wooden mask. He
studied the lean man by the mirror for a moment, then flipped his
cap on the bed and sat down without switching his eyes.
He said succinctly. "You're it."
"I've got it?" Crag gave an audible sigh of relief. Gotch nodded
without speaking.
"What about Temple?"
"Killed last night—flattened by a truck that came over the center-
line. On an almost deserted highway just outside the base," Gotch
added. He spoke casually but his eyes were not casual. They were
unfathomable black pools. Opaque and hard. Crag wrinkled his brow
inquiringly.
"Accident?"
"You know better than that. The truck was hot, a semi with bum
plates, and no driver when the cops got there." His voice turned
harsh. "No ... it was no accident."
"I'm sorry," Crag said quietly. He hadn't known Temple personally.
He had been just a name—a whispered name. One of three names,
to be exact: Romer, Temple, Crag. Each had been hand-picked as
possible pilots of the Aztec, a modified missile being rushed to
completion in a last ditch effort to beat the Eastern World in the race
for the moon. They had been separately indoctrinated, tested,
trained; each had virtually lived in one of the scale-size simulators of
the Aztec's space cabin, and had been rigorously schooled for the
operation secretly referred to as "Step One." But they had been kept
carefully apart. There had been a time when no one—unless it were
the grim-faced Gotch—knew which of the three was first choice.
Romer had died first—killed as a bystander in a brawl. So the police
said. Crag had suspected differently. Now Temple. The choice, after
all, had not been the swarthy Colonel's to make. Somehow the
knowledge pleased him. Gotch interrupted his thoughts.
"Things are happening. The chips are down. Time has run out,
Adam." While he clipped the words out he weighed Crag, as if
seeking some clue to his thoughts. His face said that everything now
depended upon the lean man with the hairline scar across his cheek.
His eyes momentarily wondered if the lean man could perform what
man never before had done. But his lips didn't voice the doubt. After
a moment he said:
"We know the East is behind us in developing an atomic spaceship.
Quite a bit behind. We picked up a lot from some of our atomic sub
work—that and our big missiles. But maybe the knowledge made us
lax." He added stridently:
"Now ... they're ready to launch."
"Now?"
"Now!"
"I didn't think they were that close."
"Intelligence tells us they've modified a couple of T-3's—the big
ICBM model. We just got a line on it ... almost too late." Gotch
smiled bleakly. "So we've jumped our schedule, at great risk. It's
your baby," he added.
Crag said simply; "I'm glad of the chance."
"You should be. You've hung around long enough," Gotch said dryly.
His eyes probed Crag. "I only hope you've learned enough ... are
ready."
"Plenty ready," snapped Crag.
"I hope so."
Gotch got to his feet, a square fiftyish man with cropped iron-gray
hair, thick shoulders and weather-roughened skin. Clearly he wasn't
a desk colonel.
"You've got a job, Adam." His voice was unexpectedly soft but he
continued to weigh Crag for a long moment before he picked up his
cap and turned toward the door.
"Wait," he said. He paused, listening for a moment before he opened
it, then slipped quietly into the hall, closing the door carefully behind
him.
He's like a cat, Crag thought for the thousandth time, watching the
closed door. He was a man who seemed forever listening; a heavy
hulking man who walked on velvet feet; a man with opaque eyes
who saw everything and told nothing. Gotch would return.
Despite the fact the grizzled Colonel had been his mentor for over a
year he felt he hardly knew the man. He was high up in the missile
program—missile security, Crag had supposed—yet he seemed to
hold power far greater than that of a security officer. He seemed, in
fact, to have full charge of the Aztec project—Step One—even
though Dr. Kenneth Walmsbelt was its official director. The difference
was, the nation knew Walmsbelt. He talked with congressmen,
pleaded for money, carried his program to the newspapers and was
a familiar figure on the country's TV screens. He was the leading
exponent of the space-can't-wait philosophy. But few people knew
Gotch; and fewer yet his connections. He was capable, competent,
and to Crag's way of thinking, a tough monkey, which pretty well
summarized his knowledge of the man.
He felt the elation welling inside him, growing until it was almost a
painful pleasure. It had been born of months and months of hope,
over a year during which he had scarcely dared hope. Now, because
a man had died....
He sat looking at the ceiling, thinking, trying to still the inner tumult.
Only outwardly was he calm. He heard footsteps returning. Gotch
opened the door and entered, followed by a second man. Crag
started involuntarily, half-rising from his chair.
He was looking at himself!
"Crag, meet Adam Crag." The Colonel's voice and face were
expressionless. Crag extended his hand, feeling a little silly.
"Glad to know you."
The newcomer acknowledged the introduction with a grin—the same
kind of lopsided grin the real Crag wore. More startling was the
selfsame hairline scar traversing his cheek; the same touch of
cockiness in the set of his face.
Gotch said, "I just wanted you to get a good look at yourself. Crag
here"—he motioned his hand toward the newcomer—"is your official
double. What were you planning for tonight, your last night on
earth?"
"I have a date with Ann. Or had," he added sourly. He twisted his
head toward Gotch as the Colonel's words sunk home. "Last night?"
Gotch disregarded the question. "For what?"
"Supper and dancing at the Blue Door."
"Then?"
"Take her home, if it's any of your damned business," snapped Crag.
"I wasn't planning on staying, if that's what you mean."
"I know ... I know, we have you on a chart," Gotch said amiably.
"We know every move you've made since you wet your first diapers.
Like that curvy little brunette secretary out in San Diego, or that
blonde night club warbler you were rushing in Las Vegas." Crag
flushed. The Colonel eyed him tolerantly.
"And plenty more," he added. He glanced at Crag's double. "I'm sure
your twin will be happy to fill in for you tonight."
"Like hell he will," gritted Crag. The room was quiet for a moment.
"As I said, he'll fill in for you."
Crag grinned crookedly. "Ann won't go for it. She's used to the real
article."
"We're not giving her a chance to snafu the works," Gotch said
grimly. "She's in protective custody. We have a double for her, too."
"Mind explaining?"
"Not a bit. Let's face the facts and admit both Romer and Temple
were murdered. That leaves only you. The enemy isn't about to let
us get the Aztec into space. You're the only pilot left who's been
trained for the big jump—the only man with the specialized know-
how. That's why you're on someone's list. Perhaps, even, someone
here at the Base ... or on the highway ... or in town. I don't know
when or how but I do know this: You're a marked monkey."
Gotch added flatly: "I don't propose to let you get murdered."
"How about him?" Crag nodded toward his double. The man smiled
faintly.
"That's what he's paid for," Gotch said unfeelingly. His lips curled
sardonically. "All the heroes aren't in space."
Crag flushed. Gotch had a way of making him uncomfortable as no
other man ever had. The gentle needle. But it was true. The Aztec
was his baby. Gotch's role was to see that he lived long enough to
get it into space. The rest was up to him. Something about the
situation struck him as humorous. He looked at his double with a
wry grin.
"Home and to bed early," he cautioned. "Don't forget you've got my
reputation to uphold."
"Go to hell," his double said amiably.
"Okay, let's get down to business," Gotch growled. "I've got a little
to say."

Long after they left Crag stood at the small window, looking out over
the desert. Somewhere out there was the Aztec, a silver arrow
crouched in its cradle, its nose pointed toward the stars. He drew
the picture in his mind. She stood on her tail fins; a six-story-tall
needle braced by metal catwalks and guard rails; a cousin twice-
removed to the great nuclear weapons which guarded Fortress
America. He had seen her at night, under the batteries of floor
lights, agleam with a milky radiance; a virgin looking skyward,
which, in fact, she was. Midway along her length her diameter
tapered abruptly, tapered again beyond the three-quarters point. Her
nose looked slender compared with her body, yet it contained a
space cabin with all the panoply needed to sustain life beyond the
atmosphere.
His thoughts were reverent, if not loving. Save for occasional too-
brief intervals with Ann, the ship had dominated his life for over a
year. He knew her more intimately, he thought, than a long-married
man knows his wife.
He had never ceased to marvel at the Aztec's complexity. Everything
about the rocket spoke of the future. She was clearly designed to
perform in a time not yet come, at a place not yet known. She would
fly, watching the stars, continuously measuring the angle between
them, computing her way through the abyss of space. Like a woman
she would understand the deep currents within her, the introspective
sensing of every force which had an effect upon her life. She would
measure gravitation, acceleration and angular velocity with infinite
precision. She would count these as units of time, perform complex
mathematical equations, translate them into course data, and find
her way unerringly across the purple-black night which separated
her from her assignation with destiny. She would move with the
certainty of a woman fleeing to her lover. Yes, he thought, he would
put his life in the lady's hands. He would ride with her on swift
wings. But he would be her master.

His mood changed. He turned from the window thinking it was a hell
of a way to spend his last night. Last night on earth, he corrected
wryly. He couldn't leave the room, couldn't budge, didn't know
where Ann was. No telephone. He went to bed wondering how he'd
ever let himself get snookered into the deal. Here he was, young,
with a zest for life and a stacked-up gal on the string. And what was
he doing about it? Going to the moon, that's what. Going to some
damned hell-hole called Arzachel, all because a smooth bird colonel
had pitched him a few soft words. Sucker!
His lips twisted in a crooked grin. Gotch had seduced him by
describing his mission as an "out-of-this-world opportunity." Those
had been Gotch's words. Well, that was Arzachel. And pretty quick it
would be Adam Crag. Out-of-this-world Crag. Just now the thought
wasn't so appealing.
Sleep didn't come easy. At Gotch's orders he had turned in early, at
the unheard hour of seven. Getting to sleep was another matter. It's
strange, he thought, he didn't have any of the feelings Doc Weldon,
the psychiatrist, had warned him of. He wasn't nervous, wasn't
afraid. Yet before another sun had set he'd be driving the Aztec up
from earth, into the loneliness of space, to a bleak crater named
Arzachel. He would face the dangers of intense cosmic radiation,
chance meteor swarms, and human errors in calculation which could
spell disaster. It would be the first step in the world race for control
of the Solar System—a crucial race with the small nations of the
world watching for the winner. Watching and waiting to see which
way to lean.
He was already cut off from mankind, imprisoned in a small room
with the momentous zero hour drawing steadily nearer. Strange, he
thought, there had been a time when his career had seemed ended,
washed up, finished, the magic of the stratosphere behind him for
good. Sure, he'd resigned from the Air Force at his own free will,
even if his C. O. had made the pointed suggestion. Because he
hadn't blindly followed orders. Because he'd believed in making his
own decisions when the chips were down. "Lack of esprit de corps,"
his C. O. had termed it.
He'd been surprised that night—it was over a year ago now—that
Colonel Gotch had contacted him. (Just when he was wondering
where he might get a job. He hadn't liked the prosaic prospects of
pushing passengers around the country in some jet job.) Sure, he'd
jumped at the offer. But the question had never left his mind. Why
had Gotch selected him? The Aztec, a silver needle plunging through
space followed by her drones, all in his tender care. He was planning
the step-by-step procedure of take-off when sleep came.
 CHAPTER 2
Crag woke with a start, sensing he was not alone. The sound came
again—a key being fitted into a lock. He started from bed as the
door swung open.
"Easy. It's me—Gotch." Crag relaxed. A square solid figure took
form.
"Don't turn on the light."
"Okay. What gives?"
"One moment." Gotch turned back toward the door and beckoned.
Another figure glided into the room—a shadow in the dim light. Crag
caught the glint of a uniform. Air Force officer, he thought.
Gotch said crisply; "Out of bed."
He climbed out, standing alongside the bed in his shorts, wondering
at the Colonel's cloak-and-dagger approach.
"Okay, Major, it's your turn," Gotch said.
The newcomer—Crag saw he was a major—methodically stripped
down to his shorts and got into bed without a word. Crag grinned,
wondering how the Major liked his part in Step One. It was scarcely
a lead role.
Gotch cut into his thoughts. "Get dressed." He indicated the Major's
uniform. Crag donned the garments silently. When he had finished
the Colonel walked around him in the dark, studying him from all
angles.
"Seems to fit very well," he said finally. "All right, let's go."
Crag followed him from the room wondering what the unknown
Major must be thinking. He wanted to ask about his double but
refrained. Long ago he had learned there was a time to talk, and a
time to keep quiet. This was the quiet time. At the outer door four
soldiers sprang from the darkness and boxed them in. A chauffeur
jumped from a waiting car and opened the rear door. At the last
moment Crag stepped aside and made a mock bow.
"After you, Colonel." His voice held a touch of sarcasm.
Gotch grunted and climbed into the rear seat and he followed. The
chauffeur blinked his lights twice before starting the engine.
Somewhere ahead a car pulled away from the curb. They followed,
leaving the four soldiers behind. Crag twisted his body and looked
curiously out the rear window. Another car dogged their wake.
Precautions, always precautions, he thought. Gotch had entered with
an Air Force officer and had ostensibly left with one; ergo, it must be
the same officer. He chuckled, thinking he had more doubles than a
movie star.
They sped through the night with the escorts fore and aft. Gotch
was a silent hulking form on the seat beside him. It's his zero hour,
too, Crag thought. The Colonel had tossed the dice. Now he was
waiting for their fall, with his career in the pot. After a while Gotch
said conversationally:
"You'll report in at Albrook, Major. I imagine you'll be getting in a bit
of flying from here on out."
Talking for the chauffeur's benefit, Crag thought. Good Lord, did
every move have to be cloak and dagger? Aloud he said:
"Be good to get back in the air again. Perhaps anti-sub patrol, eh?"
"Very likely."
They fell silent again. The car skimmed west on Highway 80, leaving
the silver rocket farther behind with every mile. Where to and what
next? He gave up trying to figure the Colonel's strategy. One thing
he was sure of. The hard-faced man next to him knew exactly what
he was doing. If it was secret agent stuff, then that's the way it had
to be played.

He leaned back and thought of the task ahead—the rocket he had

lived with for over a year. Now the marriage would be consummated.
Every detail of the Aztec was vivid in his mind. Like the three great
motors tucked triangularly between her tail fins, each a tank
equipped with a flaring nozzle to feed in hot gases under pressure.
He pictured the fuel tanks just forward of the engines; the way the
fuels were mixed, vaporized, forced into the fireports where they
would ignite and react explosively, generating the enormous volumes
of flaming hot gas to drive out through the jet tubes and provide the
tremendous thrust needed to boost her into the skies. Between the
engines and fuel tanks was a maze of machinery—fuel lines, speed
controllers, electric motors.
He let his mind rove over the rocket thinking that before many hours
had passed he would need every morsel of the knowledge he had so
carefully gathered. Midway where the hull tapered was a joint, the
separation point between the first and second stages. The second
stage had one engine fed by two tanks. The exterior of the second
stage was smooth, finless, for it was designed to operate at the
fringe of space where the air molecules were widely spaced; but it
could be steered by small deflectors mounted in its blast stream.
The third stage was little more than a space cabin riding between
the tapered nose cone and a single relatively low-thrust engine.
Between the engine and tanks was a maze of turbines, pumps,
meters, motors, wires. A generator provided electricity for the ship's
electric and electronic equipment; this in turn was spun by a turbine
driven by the explosive decomposition of hydrogen peroxide.
Forward of this was the Brain, a complex guidance mechanism which
monitored engine performance, kept track of speed, computed
course. All that was needed was the human hand. His hand.

They traveled several hours with only occasional words, purring

across the flat sandy wastes at a steady seventy. The cars boxing
them in kept at a steady distance.
Crag watched the yellow headlights sweep across the sage lining the
highway, giving an odd illusion of movement. Light and shadow
danced in eerie patterns. The chauffeur turned onto a two-lane road
heading north. Alpine Base, Crag thought. He had been stationed
there several years before. Now it was reputed to be the launch site
of one of the three drones slated to cross the gulfs of space. The
chauffeur drove past a housing area and turned in the direction he
knew the strip to be.

Somewhere in the darkness ahead a drone brooded on its pad, one

of the children of the silver missile they'd left behind. But why the
drone? The question bothered him. They were stopped several times
in the next half mile. Each time Gotch gave his name and rank and
extended his credentials. Each time they were waved on by silent
sharp-eyed sentries, but only after an exacting scrutiny. Crag was
groping for answers when the chauffeur pulled to one side of the
road and stopped. He leaped out and opened the rear door, standing
silently to one side. When they emerged, he got back into the car
and drove away. No word had been spoken. Figures moved toward
them, coming out of the blackness.
"Stand where you are and be recognized." The figures took shape—
soldiers with leveled rifles. They stood very still until one wearing a
captain's bars approached, flashing a light in their faces.
"Identity?"
Crag's companion extended his credentials.
"Colonel Michael Gotch," he monotoned. The Captain turned the
light on Gotch's face to compare it with the picture on the
identification card. He paid scant attention to Crag. Finally he looked
up.
"Proceed, Sir." It was evident the Colonel's guest was very much
expected.
Gotch struck off through the darkness with Crag at his heels. The
stars shone with icy brilliance. Overhead Antares stared down from
its lair in Scorpio, blinking with fearful venom. The smell of sage
filled the air, and some sweet elusive odor Crag couldn't identify. A
warmth stole upward as the furnace of the desert gave up its stored
heat. He strained his eyes into the darkness; stars, the black desert
... and the hulking form of Gotch, moving with certain steps.
He saw the rocket with startling suddenness—a great black
silhouette blotting out a segment of the stars. It stood gigantic,
towering, graceful, a taper-nosed monster crouched to spring, its
finned haunches squatted against the launch pad.
They were stopped, challenged, allowed to proceed. Crag pondered
the reason for their visit to the drone. Gotch, he knew, had a good
reason for every move he made. They drew nearer and he saw that
most of the catwalks, guardrails and metal supports had been
removed—a certain sign that the giant before them was near its zero
hour.
Another sentry gave challenge at the base of the behemoth. Crag
whistled to himself. This one wore the silver leaf of a lieutenant
colonel! The ritual of identification was exacting before the sentry
moved aside. A ladder zigzagged upward through what skeletal
framework still remained. Crag lifted his eyes. It terminated high up,
near the nose.
This was the Aztec! The real Aztec! The truth came in a rush. The
huge silver ship at Burning Sands, which bore the name Aztec, was
merely a fake, a subterfuge, a pawn in the complex game of agents
and counter-agents. He knew he was right.
"After you," Gotch said. He indicated the ladder and stepped aside.
Crag started up. He paused at the third platform. The floor of the
desert was a sea of darkness. Off in the distance the lights of Alpine
Base gleamed, stark against the night. Gotch reached his level and
laid a restraining hand on his arm.
Crag turned and waited. The Colonel's massive form was a black
shadow interposed between him and the lights of Alpine Base.
"This is the Aztec," he said simply.
"So I guessed. And the silver job at Burning Sands?"
"Drone Able," Gotch explained. "The deception was necessary—a
part of the cat and mouse game we've been playing the last couple
of decades. We couldn't take a single chance." Crag remained silent.
The Colonel turned toward the lights of the Base. He had become
quiet, reflective. When he spoke, his voice was soft, almost like a
man talking to himself.
"Out there are hundreds of men who have given a large part of their
lives to the dream of space flight. Now we are at the eve of making
that dream live. If we gain the moon, we gain the planets. That's the
destiny of Man. The Aztec is the first step." He turned back and
faced Crag.
"This is but one base. There are many others. Beyond them are the
factories, laboratories, colleges, scientists and engineers, right down
to Joe the Riveter. Every one of them has had a part in the dream.
You're another part, Adam, but you happen to have the lead role."
He swiveled around and looked silently at the distant lights. The
moment was solemn. A slight shiver ran through Crag's body.
"You know and I know that the Aztec is a development from the
ICBM's guarding Fortress America. You also know, or have heard,
that out in San Diego the first atom-powered spaceship is nearing
completion." He looked sharply at Crag.
"I've heard," Crag said noncommittally.
Gotch eyed him steadily. "That's the point. So have others. Our
space program is no secret. But we've suspected—feared—that the
first stab at deep space would be made before the atom job was
completed. Not satellites but deep space rockets. That's why the
Aztec was pushed through so fast." He fell silent. Crag waited.
"Well, the worst has happened. The enemy is ready to launch—may
have launched this very night. That's how close it is. Fortunately our
gamble with the Aztec is paying off. We're ready, too, Adam.
"We're going to get that moon. Get it now!" He reached into a
pocket and extracted his pipe, then thought better of lighting it. Crag
waited. The Colonel was in a rare introspective mood, a quiet
moment in which he mentally tied together and weighed his Nation's
prospects in the frightening days ahead. Finally he spoke:
"We put a rocket around the moon, Adam." He smiled faintly, noting
Crag's involuntary start of surprise. "Naturally it was fully
instrumented. There's uranium there—one big load located in the
most inaccessible spot imaginable."
"Arzachel," Crag said simply.
"The south side of Arzachel, to be exact. That's why we didn't pick a
soft touch like Mare Imbrium, in case you've wondered."
"I've wondered."
"Adam," the Colonel hesitated a long moment, "does the name
Pickering mean anything to you?"
"Ken Pickering who—"
"What have you heard?" snapped Gotch. His eyes became sharp
drills.
Crag spoke slowly: "Nothing ... for a long time. He just seemed to
drop out of sight after he broke the altitude record in the X-34." He
looked up questioningly.
"Frankly, I've always wondered why he hadn't been selected for this
job. I thought he was a better pilot than I am," he added almost
humbly.
Gotch said bluntly: "You're right. He is better." He smiled tolerantly.
"We picked our men for particular jobs," he said finally. "Pickering ...
we hope ... will be in orbit before the Aztec blasts off."
"Satelloid?"
"The first true satelloid," the Colonel agreed. "One that can ride the
fringes of space around the earth. A satelloid with fantastic altitude
and speed. I'm telling you this because he'll be a link in Step One, a
communication and observation link. He won't be up long, of course,
but long enough—we hope."
Silence fell between them. Crag looked past the Colonel's shoulder.
All at once the lights of Alpine Base seemed warm and near, almost
personal. Gotch lifted his eyes skyward, symbolic of his dreams. The
light of distant stars reflected off his brow.
"We don't know whether the Aztec can make it," he said humbly.
"We don't know whether our space-lift system will work, whether the
drones can be monitored down to such a precise point on the moon,
or the dangers of meteorite bombardment. We don't know whether
our safeguards for human life are adequate. We don't know whether
the opposition can stop us....
"We don't know lots of things, Adam. All we know is that we need
the moon. It's a matter of survival of Western Man, his culture, his
way of life, his political integrity. We need the moon to conquer the
planets ... and some day the stars."
His voice became a harsh clang.
"So does the enemy. That's why we have to establish a proprietory
ownership, a claim that the U.N. will recognize. The little nations
represent the balance of power, Adam. But they sway with the
political winds. They are the reeds of power politics ... swaying
between the Sputniks and Explorers, riding with the ebb and flow of
power ... always trying to anticipate the ultimate winner. Right now
they're watching to see where that power lies. The nation that wins
the moon will tilt the balance in its favor. At a critical time, I might
add. That's why we have to protect ourselves every inch of the way."
He tapped his cold pipe moodily against his hand. "We won't be here
to see the end results, of course. That won't be in our time. But
we're the starters. The Aztec is the pioneer ship. And in the future
our economy can use that load of uranium up there."
He smiled faintly at Crag. "When you step through the hatch you've
left earth, perhaps for all time. That's your part in the plan. Step
One is your baby and I have confidence in you." He gripped Crag's
arm warmly. It was the closest he had ever come to showing his
feelings toward the man he was sending into space.
"Come on, let's go."
Crag started upward. Gotch followed more slowly, climbing like a
man bearing a heavy weight.

The Aztec's crew, Max Prochaska, Gordon Nagel and Martin Larkwell,
came aboard the rocket in the last hour before take-off. Gotch
escorted them up the ladder and introduced them to their new
Commander.
Prochaska acknowledged the introduction with a cheerful smile.
"Glad to know you, Skipper." His thin warm face said he was glad to
be there.
Gordon Nagel gave a perfunctory handshake, taking in the space
cabin with quick ferret-like head movements.
Martin Larkwell smiled genially, pumping Crag's hand. "I've been
looking forward to this."
Crag said dryly. "We all have." He acknowledged the introductions
with the distinct feeling that he already knew each member of his
crew. It was the odd feeling of meeting old acquaintances after long
years of separation. As part of his indoctrination he had studied the
personnel records of the men he might be so dependent on. Now,
seeing them in the flesh, was merely an act of giving life to those
selfsame records. He studied them with casual eyes while Gotch
rambled toward an awkward farewell.
Max Prochaska, his electronics chief, was a slender man with sparse
brown hair, a thin acquiline nose and pointed jaw. His pale blue
eyes, thin lips and alabaster skin gave him a delicate look—one
belied by his record. His chief asset—if one was to believe the record
—was that he was a genius in electronics.
Gordon Nagel, too, was, thin-faced and pallid skinned. His black hair,
normally long and wavy, had been close-cropped. His eyes were
small, shifting, agate-black, giving Crag the feeling that he was
uneasy—an impression he was to hold. His record had described him
as nervous in manner but his psychograph was smooth. He was an
expert in oxygen systems.
Martin Larkwell, the mechanical maintenance and construction boss,
in many ways appeared the antithesis of his two companions. He
was moon-faced, dark, with short brown hair and a deceptively
sleepy look. His round body was well-muscled, his hands big and
square. Crag thought of a sleek drowsy cat, until he saw his eyes.
They were sparkling brown pools, glittering, moving with some
strange inner fire. They were the eyes of a dreamer ... or a fanatic,
he thought. In the cabin's soft light they glowed, flickered. No, there
was nothing sleepy about him, he decided.
All of the men were short, light, in their early thirties. In contrast
Crag, at 5' 10" and 165 pounds, seemed a veritable giant. A small
physique, he knew, was almost an essential in space, where every
ounce was bought at tremendous added weight in fuel. His own
weight had been a serious strike against him.
Colonel Gotch made one final trip to the space cabin. This time he
brought the Moon Code Manual (stamped TOP SECRET), the crew
personnel records (Crag wondered why) and a newly printed
pamphlet titled "Moon Survival." Crag grinned when he saw it.
"Does it tell us how to get there, too?"
"We'll write that chapter later," Gotch grunted. He shook each man's
hand and gruffly wished them luck before turning abruptly toward
the hatch. He started down the ladder. A moment later his head
reappeared.
He looked sharply at Crag and said, "By the way, that twosome at
the Blue Door got it last night."
"You mean...?"
"Burp gun. No finesse. Just sheer desperation. Well, I just wanted to
let you know we weren't altogether crazy."
"I didn't think you were."
The Colonel's lips wrinkled in a curious smile. "No?" He looked at
Crag for a long moment. "Good luck." His head disappeared from
view and Crag heard his footsteps descending the ladder.
Then they were alone, four men alone. Crag turned toward his
companions.
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