Double Star by Robert A. Heinlein

the last lap."
                "1 hope so. It's been quite a strain. Uh, Dak?"
                "Yes?"
                "Come here a second." I got out of the car, motioned him to come with me a short distance away. "What happens if I make a mistake-in there?"
                "Eh?" Dak looked surprised, then laughed a little too heartily. "You won't make a mistake. Penny tells me you've got it down Jo-block perfect."
                "Yes, but suppose I slip?"
                "You won't slip. I know how you feel; I felt the same way on my first solo grounding. But when it started, I was so busy doing it I didn't have time to do it wrong."
                Clifton called out, his voice thin in thin air, "Dak! Are you watching the time?"
                "Gobs of time. Over a minute."
                "Mr. Bonforte!" It was Penny's voice. I turned and went back to the car. She got out and put out her hand. "Good luck, Mr. Bonforte."
                "Thanks, Penny."
                Rog shook hands and Dak clapped me on the shoulder. "Minus thirty-five seconds. Better start."
                I nodded and started up the ramp. It must have been within a second or two of the exact, appointed time when I reached the top, for the mighty gates rolled back as I came to them. I took a deep breath and cursed that damned air mask.
                Then I took my stage.
                It doesn't make any difference how many times you do it, that first walk on as the curtain goes up on the first night of any run is a breath-catcher and a heart-stopper. Sure, you know your sides. Sure, you've asked the manager to count the house. Sure, you've done it all before. No matter-when you first walk out there and know that all those eyes are on you, waiting for you to speak, waiting for you to do something-maybe even waiting for you to go up on your lines, brother, you feel it. This is why they have prompters.
                I looked out and saw my audience and I wanted to run. I had stage fright for the first time in thirty years.
                The siblings of the nest were spread out before me as far as I could see. There was an open lane in front of me, with thousands on each side, set close together as asparagus. I knew that the first thing I must do was slow-march down the center of that lane, clear to the far end, to the ramp leading down into the inner nest.
                I could not move.
                I said to myself, "Look, boy, you're John Joseph Bonforte. You've been here dozens of times before. These people are your friends. You're here because you want to be here-and because they want you here. So march down that aisle. Tum turn te turn! 'Here comes the bride!"
                I began to feel like Bonforte again. I was Uncle Joe Bonforte, determined to do this thing perfectly-for the honor and welfare of my own people and my own planet-and for my Mends the Martians. I took a deep breath and one step.
                That deep breath saved me; it brought me that heavenly fragrance. Thousands on thousands of Martians packed close together-it smelled to me as if somebody had dropped and broken a whole case of Jungle Lust. The conviction that I smelled it was so strong that I involuntarily glanced back to see if Penny had followed me in. I could feel her handclasp warm in my palm.
                I started limping down that aisle, trying to make it about the speed a Martian moves on his own planet. The crowd closed in behind me. Occasionally kids would get away from their elders and skitter out in front of me. By "kids" I mean post-fission Martians, half the mass and not much over half the height of an adult. They are never out of the nest and we are inclined to forget that there can be little Martians. It takes almost five years, after fission, for a Martian to regain his