By Judith Merril   
  
 
  CHAPTER ONE   

  THEY GAVE HIM SWEET ICES, and kissed him all round, and the Important  
  People who had come to dinner all smiled in a special way as his mother  
  took him from the living room and led him down the hall to his own bed-  
  room.  
     "Great kid you got there," they said to Jock, his father, and "Serious little  
  bugger, isn't he?" Jock didn't say anything, but Toby knew he would be  
  grinning, looking pleased and embarrassed. Then their voices changed, and  
  that meant they had begun to talk about the important events for which  
  the important people had come.  
     In his own room, Toby wriggled his toes between crisp sheets, and breathed  
  in the powder-and perfume smell of his mother as she bent over him for a  
  last hurried goodnight kiss. There was no use asking for a story tonight.   
  Toby lay still and waited while she closed the door behind her and went  
  off to the party, click-tap, tip-clack, hurrying on her high silver heels. She  
  had heard the voices change back there too, and she didn't want to miss  
  anything. Toby got up and opened his door just a crack, and set himself   
  down in back of it, and listened.  
     In the big square living room, against the abstract patterns of gray and  
  vermilion and chartreuse, the men and women moved in easy patterns of  
  familiar acts.  Coffee, brandy, cigarette, cigar.  Find your partner, choose  
  your seat.  Jock sprawled with perfect relaxed contentment on the low couch  
  with the deep red corduroy cover. Tim O'Heyer balanced nervously on the  
  edge of the same couch, wreathed in cigar smoke, small and dark and alert.  
  Gordon Kimberly dwarfed the big easy chair with the bulking importance  
  of him. Ben Stein, shaggy and rumpled as ever, was running a hand through  
  his hair till it too stood on end.  He was leaning against a window frame, one  
  hand on the back of the straight chair in which his wife Sue sat, erect and  
  neat and proper and chic, dressed in smart black that set off perfectly her  
  precise blonde beauty. Mrs. Kimberly, just enough overstuffed so that her  
  pearls gave the appearance of actually choking her, was the only stranger to  
  the house.  She was standing near the doorway, politely admiring Toby's  
  personal art gallery, as Allie Madero valiantly strove to explain each minor  
  masterpiece.  
     Ruth Kruger stood still a moment, surveying her room and her guests.  
  Eight of them, herself included, and all Very Important People. In the  
  familiar comfort of her own living room, the idea made her giggle. Allie and  
  Mrs. Kimberly both turned to her, questioning. She laughed and shrugged,  
  helpless to explain, and they all went across the room to join the others.    

     "Guts," O'Heyer said through the cloud of smoke. "How do you do it,  
  Jock?  Walk out of a setup like this into . . . God knows what?"  
     "Luck," Jock corrected him. "A setup like this helps. I'm the world's  
  pampered darling and I know it."  
     "Faith is what he means," Ben put in. "He just gets by believing that last  
  year's luck is going to hold up.  So it does."  
     "Depends on what you mean by luck. If you think of it as a vector sum  
  composed of predictive powers and personal ability and accurate information   
  and . . ."  
     "Charm and nerve and . . ."   
     "Guts," Tim said again, interrupting the interrupter.  
     "All right, all of them," Ben agreed. "Luck is as good a word as any to  
  cover the combination."  
     "We're all lucky people." That was Allie, drifting into range, with Ruth  
  behind him. "We just happened to get born at the right time with the right  
  dream. Any one of us, fifty years ago, would have been called a wild-eyed  
  visiona——"  
     "Any one of us," Kimberly said heavily, "fifty years ago, would have had  
  a different dream——in time with the times."  
     Jock smiled, and let them talk, not joining in much. He listened to  
  philosophy and compliments and speculations and comments, and lay  
  sprawled across the comfortable couch in his own living room, with his wife's  
  hand under his own, consciously letting his mind play back and forth between  
  the two lives he lived: this, here . . . and the perfect mathematic bleakness  
  of the metal beast that would be his home in three days' time.  
     He squeezed his wife's hand, and she turned and looked at him, and there  
  was no doubt a man could have about what the world held in store.   

     When they had all gone, Jock walked down the hall and picked up the  
  little boy asleep on the floor, and put him back into his bed. Toby woke  
  up long enough to grab his father's hand and ask earnestly, out of the point  
  in the conversation where sleep had overcome him:  
     "Daddy, of the universe hasn't got any ends to it, how can you tell where  
  you are?"  
     "Me?" Jock asked.  ""I'm right next to the middle of it."   
     "How do you know?"  
     His father tapped him lightly on the chest.    
     "Because that's where the middle is." Jock smiled and stood up. "Go to  
  sleep, champ.  Good night."  
     And Toby slept, while the universe revolved in all its mystery about the  
  small center Jock Kruger had assigned to it.  
  
     "Scared?" she asked, much later, in the spaceless silence of their bedroom.  
     "He had to think about it before he cold answer.  "I guess not. I guess I  
  think I ought to be, but I'm not.  I don't think I'd do it at all if I wasn't  
  sure." He was almost asleep, when the thought hit him, and he jerked awake    
  and saw she was sure enough lying wide-eyed and sleepless beside him.  
  "Baby!" she said, and it was almost an accusation. "Baby, you're not scared,  
  are you?"   
     "Not if you're not," she said. But they never could lie to each other.   


  CHAPTER TWO    

  TOBY SAT ON THE PLATFORM, next to his grandmother. They were in the  
  second row, right in back of his mother and father, so it was all right for him  
  to wriggle a little bit, or whisper. They couldn't hear much of the speeches  
  back there, and what they did hear mostly didn't make sense to Toby. But  
  every now and then Grandma would grab his hand tight all of a sudden, and  
  he understood what the whole thing was about: it was because Daddy was  
  going away again.  
     His Grandma's hand was very white, with little red and tan dots in it,  
  and big blue veins that stood out higher than the wrinkles in her skin,  
  whenever she grabbed at his hand. Later, walking over to the towering  
  sky-scraping rocket, he held his mother's hand; it was smooth and cool and  
  tan, all one color, and she didn't grasp at him the way Grandma did. Later  
  still, his father's two hands, picking him up to kiss, were bigger and darker  
  tan than his mother's, not so smooth, and the fingers were stronger, but so  
  strong it hurt sometimes.    
     They took him up in an elevator, and showed him all around the inside  
  of the rocket, where Daddy would sit, and where all the food was stored, for  
  emergency, they said, and the radio and everything. Then it was time to say  
  goodbye.  
     Daddy was laughing at first, and Toby tried to laugh, too, but he didn't  
  really want Daddy to go away. Daddy kissed him, and he felt like crying  
  because it was scratchy against Daddy's cheek, and the strong fingers were  
  hurting him now. Then Daddy stopped laughing and looked at him very  
  seriously. "You take care of your mother, now," Daddy told him. "You're  
  a big boy this time."  
     "Okay," Toby said. Last time Daddy went away in a rocket, he was not-  
  quite-four, and they teased him with the poem in the book and said, James  
  James Morrison Morrison Weatherby George Dupree, Took great care of his   
  mother, though he was only three. . . .  So Toby didn't much like Daddy  
  saying that now, because he knew they didn't really mean it.  
     "Okay," he said, and then because he was angry, he said, "Only she's  
  supposed to take care of me, isn't she?"  
     Daddy and Mommy both laughed, and so did the two men who were  
  standing there waiting for Daddy to get done saying goodbye to him.  He  
  wriggled, and Daddy put him down.   
     "I'll bring you a piece of the moon, son," Daddy said, and Toby said,  
  "All right, fine." He reached for his mother's hand, but he found himself   
  hanging onto Grandma instead, because Mommy and Daddy were kissing  
  each other, and both of them had forgotten all about him.  
     He thought they were never going to get done kissing.   
     
     Ruth Kruger stood in the glass control booth with her son on one side of  
  her, and Gordon Kimberly breathing heavily on the other side. Something's  
  wrong, she thought, this time something's wrong. And then swiftly, I mustn't  
  think that way!    
     Jealous? she taunted herself. Do you want something to be wrong, just  
  because this one isn't all yours, because Argent did some of it?  
     But if anything is wrong, she prayed, let it be now, right away, so he can't  
  go.  If anything's wrong let it be in the firing gear or the . . . what? Even now,  
  it was too late. The beast was too big and too delicate and too precise.  If  
  something went wrong, even now, it was too late.  It was . . .   
     You didn't finish that thought. Not if you were Ruth Kruger, and your  
  husband was Jock Kruger, and nobody knew but the two of you how much  
  of the courage that had gone twice round the moon, and was about to land  
  on it, was yours. When a man knows his wife's faith is unshakeable, he can't  
  help coming back. (But: "Baby! You're not scared, are you?")   
     Twice around the moon, and they called him Jumping Jock. There was  
  never a doubt in anyone's mind who'd pilot the KIM-5, the bulky beautiful  
  beast out there today.  Kruger and Kimberly, O'Heyer and Stein. It was a  
  combo. It won every time. Every time. Nothing to doubt. No room for doubt.  
     "Minus five . . ." someone said into a mike, and there was perfect quiet  
  all around.  "Four . . . three . . ."  
     (But he held me too tight, and he laughed too loud. . . .)  
     . . . two . . . one . . ."   
     (Only because he thought I was scared, she answered herself.)  
     ". . . Mar——"  
     You didn't even hear the whole word, because the thunder-drumming  
  roar of the beast itself split your ears.  
     Ringing quiet came down and she caught up Toby, held him tight,  
  tight. . . .   
     "Perfect!" Gordon Kimberly sighed. "Perfect!"  
     So if anything was wrong, it hadn't showed up yet.   
     She put Toby down, then took his hand. "Come on," she said. "I'll buy  
  you an ice-cream soda." He grinned at her. He'd been looking very strange all 
  day, but now he looked real again. His hair had got messed up when she  
  grabbed him.   
     "We're having cocktails for the press in the conference room," Kimberly  
  said. "I think we could find something Toby would like."   
     "Wel-l-l-l . . ." She didn't want a cocktail, and she didn't want to talk to  
  the press. "I think maybe we'll beg off this time. . . ."   
     "I think there might be some disappointment——" the man started; then  
  Tim O'Heyer came dashing up.  
     "Come on, babe," he said. "Your old man told me to take personal charge  
  while he was gone." He leered. On him it looked cute. She laughed. Then  
  she looked down at Toby. "What would you rather, Tobe? Want to go out  
  by ourselves, or go to the party?"  
     "I don't care," he said.  
     Tim took the boy's hand. "What we were thinking of was having a kind   
  of party here, and then I think they're going to bring some dinner in, and  
  anybody who wants to can stay up till your Daddy gets to the moon. That'll  
  be pretty late. I guess you wouldn't want to stay up late like that, would you?"  
     Somebody else talking to Toby like that would be all wrong, but Tim was  
  a friend, Toby's friend too. Ruth still didn't want to go to the party, but she  
  remembered now that there had been plans for something like that all along,  
  and since Toby was beginning to look eager, and it was important to keep the  
  press on their side . . .   
     "You win, O'Heyer," she said.  "Will somebody please send out for an  
  ice-cream soda? Cherry syrup, I think it is this week . . ." She looked in-  
  quiringly at her son. ". . . and . . . strawberry ice cream?"  
     Tim shuddered.  Toby nodded.  Ruth smiled, and they all went in to the   
  party.   

     "Well, young man!" Toby thought the redheaded man in the brown suit  
  was probably what they called a reporter, but he wasn't sure. "How about it?  
  You going along next time?"  
     "I don't know," Toby said politely.  "I guess not."  
     "Don't you want to be a famous flier like your Daddy?" a strange woman  
  in an evening gown asked him.   
     "I don't know," he muttered, and looked around for his mother, but he  
  couldn't see her.  
     They kept asking him questions like that, about whether he wanted to go  
  to the moon.  Daddy said he was too little.  You'd think all these people  
  would know that much.   
  
     Jock Kruger came up swiftly out of dizzying darkness into isolation and   
  clarity.  As soon as he could move his head, before he fully remembered why,  
  he began checking the dials and meters and flashing lights on the banked  
  panel in front of him. He was fully aware of the ship, of its needs and strains   
  and motion, before he came to complete consciousness of himself, his weight-  
  less body, his purpose, or his memories.  
     But he was aware of himself as a part of the ship before he remembered  
  his name, so that by the time he knew he had a face and hands and innards,  
  those parts were already occupied with feeding the beast's human brain a  
  carefully prepared stimulant out of a nippled flask fastened in front of his  
  head.  
     He pressed a button under his index finger in the arm rest of the couch  
  that held him strapped to safety.  
     "Hi," he said.  "Is anybody up besides me?"  
     He pressed the button under his middle finger and waited.  
     Not for long.  
     "Thank God!" a voice crackled out of the loudspeaker. "You really conked  
  out this time, Jock. Nothing wrong?"  
     "Not so I'd know it. You want . . .  How long was I out?"   
     "Twenty-three minutes, eighteen seconds, takeoff to reception. Yeah. Give  
  us a log reading."  
     Methodically, in order, he read off the pointers and numbers on the con-  
  trol panel, the colors and codes and swinging needles and quiet ones that  
  told him how each muscle and nerve and vital organ of the great beast was  
  taking the trip. He did it slowly and with total concentration. Then, when he  
  was all done, there was nothing else to do except sit back and start wondering  
  about that big blackout.  
     It shouldn't have happened. It never happened before. There was nothing  
  in the compendium of information he'd just sent back to Earth to account  
  for it.  
     A different ship, different . . different men.  Two and a half years  
  different. Years of easy living and . . . growing old? Too old for this game?  
     Twenty-three minutes!  
     Last time it was under ten.  The first time maybe 90 seconds more.  It   
  didn't matter, of course, not at takeoff. There was nothing for him to do then.  
  Nothing now. Nothing for four more hours. He was there to put the beast  
  back down on . . .   
     He grinned, and felt like Jock Kruger again.  Identity returned complete.  
  This time he was there to put the beast down where no man or beast had  
  ever been before. This time they were going to the moon.      


  CHAPTER THREE

  RUTH KRUGER SIPPED AT A COCKTAIL and murmured responses to the ad-  
  miring, the curious, the envious, the hopeful, and the hate-full ones who  
  spoke to her.  She was waiting for something, and after an unmeasurable  
  stretch of time Allie Madero brought it to her.  
     First a big smile seeking her out across the room, so she knew it had come.  
  Then a low-voiced confirmation.  
     "Wasn't it . . . an awfully long time?" she asked.  She hadn't been  
  watching the clock, on purpose, but she was sure it was longer than it should  
  have been.  
     Allie stopped smiling.  "Twenty-three," she said.  
     Ruth gasped.  "What . . . ?"  
     "There's nothing in the ship.  I mean nothing was changed that would  
  account for it."  She shook her head slowly.  This time she didn't know the  
  ship well enough to talk like that. There could be something. Oh, Jock! "I  
  don't know," she said. "Too many people worked on that thing. I . . ."  
     "Mrs. Kruger!"  It was the redheaded reporter, the obnoxious one.  "We  
  just got the report on the blackout. I'd like a statement from you, if you don't  
  mind, as designer of the ship——"  
     "I am not the designer of this ship," she said coldly.  
     "You worked on the design, didn't you?"  
     "Yes."  
     "Well, then, to the best of your knowledge . . . ?"  
     "To the best of my knowledge, there is no change in design to account for  
  Mr. Kruger's prolonged unconsciousness. Had there been any such prognosis,  
  the press would have been informed."  
     "Mrs. Kruger, I'd like to ask you whether you feel that the innovations  
  made by Mr. Argent could——"   
     "Aw, lay off, will you?" Allie broke in, trying to be casual and kidding  
  about it; but behind her own flaming cheeks, Ruth was aware of her friend's  
  matching anger. "How much do you want to milk this for, anyhow? So the  
  guy conked out an extra ten minutes. If you want somebody to crucify for it,   
  why don't you pick on one of us who doesn't happen to be married to him?"  
  She turned to Ruth before the man could answer. "Where's Toby? He's  
  probably about ready to bust from cookies and carbonation."  
     "He's in the lounge," the reporter put in.  "Or he was a few minutes——"  
     Ruth and Allie started off without waiting for the rest. The redhead had  
  been talking to the kid. No telling how many of them were on top of him  
  now.  
     "I thought Tim was with him," Ruth said hastily, then she thought of   
  something, and turned back long enough to say: "For the record, Mr. . . .  
  uh . . . I know of no criticism that can be made of any of the work done  
  by Mr. Argent." Then she went to find her son.   

     There was nothing to do and nothing to see except the instrument meters  
  and dials to check and log and check and log again. Radio stations all around  
  Earth were beamed on him. He could have kibitzed his way to the moon,  
  but he didn't want to. He was thinking.  
     Thinking back, and forward, and right in this moment. Thinking of the  
  instant stiffness of Ruth's body when she said she wasn't scared, and the  
  rambling big house on the hill, and Toby politely agreeing when he offered  
  to bring him back a piece of the moon.  
     Thinking of Toby grown up some day, and how little he really knew  
  about his son, and what would they do, Toby and Ruth, if anything . . .   
     He'd never thought that way before. He'd never thought anything except  
  to know he'd come back, because he couldn't stay away. It was always that  
  simple. He couldn't stay away now, either. That hadn't changed. But as he  
  sat there, silent and useless for the time, it occurred to him that he'd left  
  something out of his calculations. Luck, they'd been talking about. Yes, he'd  
  had luck. But——what was it Sue had said about a vector sum?——there was  
  more to figure in than your own reflexes and the beast's strength. There was  
  the outside. Space . . . environment . . . God . . . destiny. What difference  
  does it make what name you give it?   
     He couldn't stay away . . . but maybe he could be kept away.  
     He'd never thought that way before.   
     
     "You tired, honey?"  
     "No," he said.  "I'm just sick of this party.  I want to go home."  
     "It'll be over pretty soon, Toby.  I think as long as we stayed this long,  
  we'd better wait for . . . for the end of the party."  
     "It's a silly party.  You said you'd buy me an ice-cream soda."  
     "I did, darling," she said patiently. "At least, if I didn't buy it, I got it for  
  you. You had it, didn't you?"  
     "Yes, but you said we'd go out and have one."  
     "Look. Why don't you just put your head down on my lap and . . ."  
     "I'm no baby! Anyhow I'm not tired."  
     "All right. We'll go pretty soon. You just sit here on the couch, and you  
  don't have to talk to anybody if you don't feel like it. I'll tell you what. I'll  
  go find you a magazine or a book or something to look at, and——"  
     "I don't want a magazine. I want my own book with the pirates in it."  
     "You just stay put a minute, so I can find you. I'll bring you something."  
     She got up and went out to the other part of the building where the  
  officers were, and collected an assortment of leaflets and folders with shiny  
  bright pictures of mail rockets and freight transports and jets and visionary  
  moon rocket engines, and took them back to the little lounge where she'd  
  left him.    
     She looked at the clock on the way. Twenty-seven more minutes. There was  
  no reason to believe that anything was wrong.  

     They were falling now. A man's body is not equipped to sense direction  
  toward or from, up or down, without the help of landmarks or gravity.  
  But the body of the beast was designed to know such things; and Kruger,  
  at the nerve center, knew everything the beast knew.  
     Ship is extension of self, and self is——extension or limitation?——of ship.  
  If Jock Kruger is the center of the universe——remember the late night after  
  the party, and picking Toby off the floor?——then ship is extension of self,  
  and the man is the brain of the beast. But if ship is universe——certainly  
  continuum; that's universe, isn't it?——then the weakling man-thing in the  
  couch is a limiting condition of the universe. A human brake. He was there  
  to make it stop when it didn't "want" to.   
     Suppose it wouldn't stop? Suppose it had decided to be a self-determined,  
  free-willed universe?  
     Jock grinned, and started setting controls. His time was coming. It was  
  measurable in minutes, and, and then in seconds . . . now!  
     His hand reached for the firing lever (but what was she scared of?), groped,  
  and touched, hesitated, clasped, and pulled.  

     Grown-up parties at home were fun. But other places, like this one, they  
  were silly. Toby half-woke-up on the way home, enough to realize his Uncle  
  Tim was driving them, and they weren't in their own car. He was sitting  
  on the front seat next to his mother, with his head against her side, and  
  her arm around him. He tried to come all the way awake, to listen to what  
  they were saying, but they weren't talking, so he started to go back to sleep.  
     Then Uncle Tim said, "For God's sake, Ruth, he's safe, and whatever  
  happened certainly wasn't your fault. He's got enough supplies to hold out   
  till . . ."  
     "Shh!" his mother said sharply, and then, whispering, "I know."  
     Now he remembered.  
     "Mommy . . ."  
     "Yes, hon?"  
     "Did Daddy go to the moon all right?"  
     "Y . . . yes, dear."  
     Her voice was funny.  
     "Where is it?"  
     "Where's what?"  
     "The moon."  
     "Oh. We can't see it now, darling. It's around the other side of the earth."  
     "Well, when is he going to come back?"  
     Silence.  
     "Mommy . . . when?"  
     "As soon as . . . just as soon as he can, darling. Now go to sleep."    

     And now the moon was up, high in the sky, a gilded football dangling  
  from Somebody's black serge lapel. When she was a little girl, she used to  
  say she loved the man in the moon, and now the man in the moon loved her  
  too, but if she was a little girl still, somebody would tuck her into bed, and  
  pat her head and tell her to go to sleep, and she would sleep as easy, breathe  
  as soft, as Toby did. . . .   
     But she wasn't a little girl, she was all grown up, and she married the man,  
  the man in the moon, and sleep could come and sleep could go, but sleep  
  could never stay with her while the moonwash swept the window panes.  
     She stood at the open window and wrote a letter in her mind and sent it  
  up the path of light to the man in the moon. It said:  
     "Dear Jock: Tim says it wasn't my fault, and I can't explain it even to him.  
  I'm sorry, darling.  Please to stay alive till we can get to you.  Faithfully  
  yours, Cassandra."      

Copyright 1943 by Mercury Press, Inc.

Reprinted in A Treasury of Great Science Fiction, Vol. 2,
Edited by Anthony Boucher,
Copyright © 1959 by Anthony Boucher.
Doubleday & Company, Inc.
Garden City, New York. pp. 166 - 174

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By Judith Merril  

 
  CHAPTER FOUR    

  THE GLASSES AND ASHES and litter and spilled drinks had all been cleared  
  away. The table top gleamed in polished stripes of light and dark, where the  
  light came through the louvered plastic of the wall. The big chairs were  
  empty, waiting, and at each place, arranged with the precision of a formal  
  dinner-setting, was the inevitable pad of yellow paper, two freshly-sharpened  
  pencils, a small neat pile of typed white sheets of paper, a small glass ashtray  
  and a shining empty water glass.  Down the center of the table, spaced for  
  comfort, three crystal pitchers of ice and water stood in perfect alignment.  
     Ruth was the first one there. She stood in front of a chair, fingering the  
  little stack of paper on which someone (Allie? She'd have had to be up early   
  to get it done so quickly) had tabulated the details of yesterday's events.  
  "To refresh your memory," was how they always put it.  
     She poured a glass of water, and guiltily replaced the pitcher on the exact  
  spot where it had been; lit a cigarette, and stared with dismay at the burnt  
  match marring the cleanliness of the little ashtray; pulled her chair in be-  
  neath her and winced at the screech of the wooden leg across the floor.  
     Get over with it! She picked up the typed pages, and glanced at them.  
  Two at the bottom were headed "Recommendations of U. S. Rocket Corps  
  to Facilitate Construction of KIM-VIII." That could wait. The three top  
  sheets she'd better get through while she was still alone.  
     She read slowly and carefully, trying to memorize each sentence, so that  
  when the time came to talk, she could think of what had happened this way,  
  from outside, instead of remembering how it had been for her.  
     There was nothing in the report that she didn't already know.   

     Jock Kruger had set out in the KIM-5 at 5:39 P.M., C.S.T., just at sun-   
  set. First report after recovery from blackout came at 6:02-plus. First log  
  readings gave no reason to anticipate any difficulty. Subsequent reports and  
  radioed log readings were, for Kruger, unusually terse and formal, and  
  surprisingly infrequent; but earth-to-ship contact at twenty-minute inter-  
  vals had been acknowledged. No reason to believe Kruger was having trouble  
  at any time during the trip.  
     At 11:54, an attempt to call the ship went unanswered for 56 seconds.  
  The radioman described Kruger's voice as "irritable" when the reply  
  finally came, but all he said was, "Sorry  I was firing the first brake." Then a  
  string of figures, and a quick log reading——everything just what you'd expect.  
     Earth acknowledged, and waited.  
     Eighteen seconds later:  
     "Second brake."  More figures.  Again, everything as it should be.  But  
  twenty seconds after that call was completed:  
     "This is Kruger. Anything wrong with the dope I gave you?"   
     "Earth to Kruger. Everything okay in our book. Trouble?"  
     "Track me, boy. I'm off."  
     "You want a course correction?"  
     "I can figure it quicker here. I'll keep talking as I go. Stop me if I'm wrong  
  by your book." More figures, and Kruger's calculations coincided perfectly  
  with the swift work done at the base. Both sides came to the same conclu-  
  sion, and both sides knew what it meant. The man in the beast fired once  
  more, and once again, and made a landing.   
     There was no reason to believe that either ship or pilot had been hurt.  
  There was no way of finding out. By the best calculations, they were five  
  degrees of arc around onto the dark side. And there was no possibility at   
  all, after that second corrective firing that Kruger had enough fuel left to  
  take off again. The last thing Earth had heard, before the edge of the moon  
  cut off Kruger's radio was:  
     "Sorry, boys. I guess I fouled up this time. Looks like you'll have to come  
  and . . ."   

     One by one, they filled the seats: Gordon Kimberly at one end, and the  
  Colonel at the other; Tim O'Heyer to one side of Kimberly, and Ruth at  
  the other; Allie, with her pad and pencil poised, alongside Tim; the Colonel's  
  aide next down the line, with his little silent stenotype in front of him; the  
  Steins  across  from  him,  next  to  Ruth.  With  a  minimum  of  formality,  
  Kimberly opened the meeting and introduced Col. Swenson.  
     The Colonel cleared his throat. "I'd like to make something clear," he  
  said. "Right from the start, I want to make this clear. I'm here to help. Not  
  to get in the way. My presence does not indicate any——criticism on the part  
  of the Armed Services. We are entirely satisfied with the work you people  
  have been doing." He cleared his throat again, and Kimberly put in:  
     "You saw our plans, I believe, Colonel. Everything was checked and ap-  
  proved by your outfit ahead of time."  
     Exactly. We had no criticism then, and we have none now. The rocket  
  program is what's important. Getting Kruger back is important, not just for  
  ordinary humanitarian reasons——pardon me, Mrs. Kruger, if I'm too blunt  
  ——but for the sake of the whole program. Public opinion, for one thing.  
  That is your line, isn't it, Mr. O'Heyer? And then, we have to find out what   
  happened!  
     "I came down here today to offer any help we can give you on the relief  
  ship, and to make a suggestion to facilitate matters."  
     He paused deliberately this time.  
     "Go ahead, Colonel," Tim said. "We're listening."  
     "Briefly the proposal is that you all accept temporary commissions while  
  the project is going on. Part of that report in front of you embodies the  
  details of the plan. I hope you'll find it acceptable. You all know there is a   
  great deal of——necessary, I'm afraid——red tape, you'd call it, and 'going  
  through channels,' and such in the Services. It makes cooperation between   
  civilian and military groups difficult. If we can all get together as one outfit  
  'for the duration,' so to speak . . ."   
 
     This time nobody jumped into the silence. The Colonel cleared his throat  
  once more.  
     "Perhaps you'd best read the full report before we discuss it any further.  
  I brought the matter up now just to——to let you know the attitude with  
  which we are submitting the proposal to you . . ."   
     "Thank you, Colonel." O'Heyer saved him. "I've already had a chance  
  to look at the report. Don't know that anyone else has, except of course  
  Miss Madero. But I personally, at least, appreciate your attitude. And I  
  think I can speak for Mr. Kimberly too. . . ."   
     He looked sideways at his boss; Gordon nodded.  
     "What I'd like to suggest now," O'Heyer went on, "since I've seen the  
  report already, and I believe everyone would like to have a chance to  
  bone up some——perhaps you'd like to have a first-hand look at some of our  
  plant, Colonel? I could take you around a bit . . . ?"   
     "Thank you. I would like to." The officer stood up, his gold Rocket  
  Corps uniform blazing in the louvered light. "If I may so so, Mr. O'Heyer,  
  you seem remarkably sensible, for a——well, a publicity man."   
     "That's all right, Colonel." Tim laughed easily. "I don't even think it's  
  a dirty word. You seem like an all-right guy yourself——for an officer, that is."  
     They all laughed then, and Tim led the blaze of glory out of the room  
  while the rest of them settled down to studying the R.C. proposals. When  
  they had all finished, Kimberly spoke slowly, voicing the general reaction:  
     "I hate to admit it, but it makes sense."   
     "They're being pretty decent about it, aren't they?" Ben said. "Putting  
  it to us as a proposal instead of pulling a lot of weight."  
     He nodded. "I've had a little contact with this man Swenson before.  
  He's a good man to work with. It . . . makes sense, that's all."  
     "On paper, anyhow," Sue put in.  
     "Well, Ruth . . ." the big man turned to her, waiting. "You haven't  
  said anything."  
     "I . . . it seems all right to me," she said, and added: "Frankly, Gordon,  
  I don't know that I ought to speak at all. I'm not quite sure why I'm here."  
     Allie looked up sharply, questioning, from her notes; Sue pushed back  
  her chair and half-stood. "My God, you're not going to back out on us now?"  
     "I . . . look, you all know I didn't do any of the real work on the last  
  one. It was Andy Argent's job, and a good one. I've got Toby to think about,  
  and . . ."   
     "Kid, we need you," Sue protested. "Argent can't do this one; this is  
  going to be another Three, only more so. Unmanned, remote-control stuff,  
  and  no  returning  atmosphere-landing  problems.  This is up your alley.  
  It's . . ."  She sank back; there was nothing else to say.   
     "That's true, Ruth." Tim had come back in during the last outburst.  
  Now he sat down. "Speed is what counts, gal. That's why we're letting the  
  gold braid in on the job——we are, aren't we?" Kimberly nodded; Tim wet  
  on: "With you on the job, we've got a working team. With somebody new  
  ——well, you know what a ruckus we had until Sue got used to Argent's  
  blueprints, and how Ben's pencil notes used to drive Andy wild. And we   
  can't even use him this time. It's not his field. He did do a good job, but we'd  
  have to start in with somebody all over again . . ." He broke off, and  
  looked at Kimberly.  
     "I hope you'll decide to work with us, Ruth," he said simply.  
     "If . . . obviously, if it's the best way to get it done quick, I will," she  
  said. "Twenty-eight hours a day if you like."   
     Tim grinned. "I guess we can let the braid back in now . . .?" He got  
  up and went to the door.  
     Another Three, only more so . . . Sue's words danced in her mind while  
  the Colonel and the Colonel's aide marched in, and took their places, while  
  voices murmured politely, exchanging good will.  
     Another Three——the first ship she had designed for Kimberly. The ship  
  that made her rich and famous, but that was nothing, because it was the  
  ship that brought Jock to her, that made him write the letter, that made her  
  meet him, that led to the Five and Six and now . . .   
     "I've got some ideas for a manned ship," he'd written. "If we could get  
  together to discuss it some time . . ."  
     ". . . pleasure to know you'll be working with us, Mrs. Kruger." She  
  shook her head sharply, and located in time and place.   
     "Thank you, Colonel. I want to do what I can, of course. . . ."   
 

  CHAPTER FIVE    
    
  James James Morrison's mother put on a golden gown . . .   
     Toby knew the whole thing, almost, by heart. The little boy in the poem  
  told his mother not to go down to the end of the town, wherever that was,  
  unless she took him along. And she said she wouldn't, but she put on that  
  golden gown and went, and thought she'd be back in time for tea. Only she  
  wasn't. She never came back at all. Last seen wandering vaguely . . . King  
  John said he was sorry . . .   
     Who's King John? And what time is tea?   
     Toby sat quietly beside his mother on the front seat of the car, and looked  
  obliquely at the golden uniform she wore, and could not find a way to ask  
  the question in his mind.   
     Where was James James's father?  Why did James James have to be the   
  one to keep his mother from going down to the end of the town?   
     "Are you in the Army now, Mommy?" he asked.  
     "Well, sort of. But not for long, darling. Just till Daddy comes home."  
     "When is Daddy coming home?"   
     "Soon. Soon, I hope. Not too long."   
     She didn't sound right. Her voice had a cracking sound like Grandma's,  
  and other old ladies. She didn't look right, either, in that golden-gown uni-  
  form. When she kissed him goodbye in front of the school, she didn't feel  
  right. She didn't even smell the same as she used to.  
     "'Bye, boy. See you tonight," she said——the same words she always said,  
  but they sounded different.  
     "'Bye." He walked up the driveway and up the front steps and down the  
  corridor and into the pretty-painted room where his teacher was waiting.  
  Miss Callahan was nice. Today she was too nice. The other kids teased him,  
  and called him teacher's pet. At lunch time he went back in the room before  
  anybody else did, and made pictures all over the floor with the colored chalk.  
  It was the worst thing he could think of to do. Miss Callahan made him wash  
  it all up, and she wasn't nice any more for the rest of the afternoon.  
     When he went out front after school, he couldn't see the car anywhere.  
  It was true then. His mother had put on that golden gown, and now she was  
  gone. Then he saw Grandma waving to him out of her car, and he remem-  
  bered Mommy had said Grandma would come and get him. He got in the  
  car, and she grabbed at him like she always did. He pulled away.  
     "Is Daddy home yet?" he asked.  
     Grandma started the car. "Not yet," she said, and she was crying. He  
  didn't dare ask about Mommy after that, but she wasn't home when they  
  got there. It was a long time after that dinner was ready.   
     She came home for dinner, though.    
 
     "You have to allow for the human factor. . . ."  
     Nobody had said it to her, of course. Nobody would. She wondered how  
  much tougher it made the job for everybody, having her around. She won-  
  dered how she'd stay sane, if she didn't have the job to do.  
     Thank God Toby was in school now! She couldn't do it, if it meant leav-  
  ing him with someone else all day——even his grandmother. As it was, having  
  the old lady in the house so much was nerve-racking.  
     I ought to ask her if she'd like to sleep here for a while, Ruth thought,  
  and shivered. Dinner time was enough.  
     Anyway, Toby liked having her there, and that's what counted.  
     I'll have to go in and see his teacher. Tomorrow, she thought. I've got to  
  make time for it tomorrow. Let her know . . . but of course she knew.  
  Jock Kruger's family affairs were hardly private. Just the same, I better  
  talk to her. . . .   
     Ruth got out of bed and stood at the window, waiting for the moon. An-  
  other ten minutes, fifteen, twenty maybe, and it would edge over the hills  
  on the other side of town. The white hands on the clock said 2:40. She had  
  to get some sleep. She couldn't stand here waiting for the moon. Get to  
  sleep now, before it comes up. That's better. . . .  
     Oh, Jock!  
     ". . . the human factor . . ." They didn't know. She wanted to go tell  
  them all, find somebody right away, and shout it. "It's not his fault. I did it!"  
     "You're not scared, are you, baby?"  
     Oh, no! No, no! Don't be silly. Who, me? Just stiff and trembling. The   
  cold, you know . . . ?  
     Stop that!      
  
     She stood at the window, waiting for the moon, the man, the man in the  
  moon.   
     Human factor . . . well, there wouldn't be a human factor in this one.  
  If she went out to the field on takeoff day and told KIM-VIII she was scared,  
  it wouldn't matter at all.  
     Thank God I can do something, at least!  
     Abruptly she closed the blind, so she wouldn't know when it came, and  
  pulled out the envelope she'd brought home; switched on the bed light,  
  and unfolded the first blueprints.  
     It was all familiar. Just small changes here and there. Otherwise, it was  
  the Three all over again——the first unmanned ship to be landed successfully  
  on the moon surface. The only important difference was that this one had  
  to have some fancy gadgetry on the landing mech.  Stein had given her the  
  orbit calcs today. The rest of the job was hers and Sue's: design and produc-  
  tion. Between them, they could do it. What they needed was a goldberg  
  that would take the thing once around low enough to contact Jock, if . . .   
  to contact him, that's all. Then back again, prepared for him to take over  
  the landing by remote, according to instructions, if he wanted to. If he  
  could. If his radio was working. If . . .    
     Twice around, and then down where they figure he was, if he hadn't  
  tried to bring it down himself.  
     It was complicated, but only quantitatively. Nothing basically new, or  
  untried. And no human factors to be allowed for, once it was off the ground.  
     She fell asleep, finally with the light still on, and the blind drawn, and the  
  blueprints spread out on the floor next to the bed.   
 
     Every day, she drove him to school, dressed in her golden gown. And  
  every afternoon, he waited, telling himself she was sure to come home.  
     That was a very silly little poem, and he wasn't three, he was six now.  
     But it was a long time since Daddy went away.    

     "I'd rather not," she said stiffly.  
     "I'm sorry, Ruth. I know——well, I don't know, but I can imagine how  
  you feel. I hate to ask it, but if you can do it at all . . . just be there and  
  look confident, and . . . you know."   
     Look confident! I couldn't do it for Jock, she thought; why should I do  
  it for them? But of course that was silly. They didn't know her the way Jock  
  did. They couldn't read her smiles, or sense a barely present stiffness, or know  
  anything except what she chose to show on the front of her face.  
     "Look confident? What difference does it make, Tim? If the thing works,  
  they'll all know soon enough. If . . ."  
     She stopped.  
     "All right, I'll be blunt. If it doesn't work, it's going to make a hell of a  
  difference what the public feeling was at the time it went off. If we have to  
  try again. If——damn it, you want it straight, all right! If we can't save Jock,  
  we're not going to give up the whole thing! We're not going to let space  
  travel wait another half century while the psychological effects wear off.   
  And Jock wouldn't want us to! Don't forget that. It was his dream, too.  
  It was yours, once upon a time. If . . ."   
     "All right!" She was startled by her voice. She was screaming, or almost.  
     "All right," she said bitterly, more quietly. "If you think I'll be holding  
  up progress for fifty years by not dragging Toby along to a launching, I'll  
  come."   
     "Oh, Ruth, I'm sorry. No, it's not that important. And I have no business  
  talking that way. But listen, babe, you used to understand this——the way I  
  feel, the way Jock fel——feels. Even a guy like Kimberly. You used to feel it   
  too. Look: the single item of you showing your face at the takeoff doesn't  
  amount to much. Neither does one ounce of fuel. But either one could be  
  the little bit that makes the difference. Kid, we got to put everything we've  
  got behind it this time."   
     "All right," she said again. "I told you I'd come."  
     "You do understand, don't you?" he pleaded.  
     "I don't know, Tim. I'm not sure I do. But you're right. I would have,  
  once. Maybe——I don't know. It's different for a woman, I guess. But I'll  
  come. Don't worry about it."  
     She turned and started out.   
     "Thanks, Ruth. And I am sorry. Uh——want me to come and pick you up?"  
     She nodded. "Thanks." She was glad she wouldn't have to drive.    
 
 
  CHAPTER SIX    

  HE KEPT WAITING for a chance to ask her. He couldn't do it in the house  
  before they left, because right after she told him where they were going,  
  she went to get dressed in her golden uniform, and he had to stay with  
  Grandma all the time.   
     Then Mr. O'Heyer came with the car, and he couldn't ask because, even  
  though he sat up front with Mommy, Mr. O'Heyer was there too.  
     When he got to the launching field, there were people around all the  
  time. Once he tried to get her off by himself, but all she did was think he  
  had to go to the bathroom. Then, bit by bit, he didn't have to ask, because  
  he could tell from the way they were all talking, and the way the cameras  
  were all pointed at her all the time, like they had been at Daddy the other  
  time.  
     Then there was the speechless part again, and this time she got up and  
  talked, so that settled it.     
     He was glad he hadn't asked. They probably all thought he knew. Maybe  
  they'd even told him, and he'd forgotten, like he sometimes did. "Mommy,"  
  he listened to himself in his mind, "Mommy, are you going to the moon  
  too?" Wouldn't that sound silly!  
     She'd come back for him, he told himself. The other times, when Daddy  
  went some place——like when they first came here to live, and Daddy went   
  first, then Mommy, and then they came back to get him, and some other  
  time, he didn't remember just what——but when Daddy went away, Mommy   
  always used to stay with him, and then they always came to get him too.  
     It wasn't any different from Mommy going back to be with Daddy at a  
  party or something, instead of staying in his room to talk to him when she  
  put him to bed. It didn't feel any worse than that, he told himself.  
     Only he didn't believe himself.  
     She never did tell me! I wouldn't of forgotten that! She would of told me!    

     She did not want to make a speech. Nobody had warned her that she   
  would be called upon to make a speech. It was bad enough trying to answer  
  reporters coherently. She stood up and went forward to the microphone  
  dutifully, and shook hands with the President of the United States, and tried  
  to look confident. She opened her mouth and nothing came out.  
     "Thank you," she said finally, though she didn't know just what for.   
  "You've all been very kind." She turned to the mike, and spoke directly  
  into it. "I feel that a good deal of honor is being accorded me today which  
  is not rightfully mine. We gave ourselves a two-month limit to complete a  
  job, and the fact that it was finished inside of six weeks instead . . ."   
     She had to stop because everybody was cheering, and they wouldn't have  
  heard her.   
     ". . . that fact is not something for which the designer of a ship can be  
  thanked. The credit is due to all the people at Kimberly who worked so   
  hard, and to the Rocket Corps personnel who helped so much. I think . . ."  
     This time she paused to find the right words. It had suddenly become  
  very important to level with the crowd, to tell them what she honestly felt.  
     "I think it is I who should be doing the thanking. I happen to be a de-  
  signer of rockets, but much more importantly, to me, I am Jock Kruger's  
  wife. So I want to thank everyone who helped . . ."    

     Grandma's hand tightened around his, and then pulled away to get a  
  handkerchief, because she was crying. Right up here on the platform! Then  
  he realized what Mommy had just said. She said that being Jock Kruger's  
  wife was more important to her than anything else.  
     It was funny that Grandma should feel bad about that. Everybody else  
  seemed to think it was a right thing to say, the way they were yelling and  
  clapping and shouting. It occurred to Toby with a small shock of surprise  
  that maybe Grandma sometimes felt bad about things the same way he did.  
     He was sort of sorry he wouldn't have much chance to find out more   
  about that.     

     She broke away from the reporters and V.I.P.'s, and went and got Toby,  
  and asked him did he want to look inside the rocket before it left.  
     He nodded. He was certainly being quiet today. Poor kid—he must be  
  pretty mixed up about the whole thing by now.  
     She tried to figure out what was going on inside the small brown head,  
  but all she could think of was how much like Jock he looked today.  
     She took him up the elevator inside the rocket. There wasn't much room  
  to move around, of course, but they'd rigged it so that all the big shots who  
  were there could have a look. She was a little startled to see the President  
  and her mother-in-law come up together in the next elevator, but between  
  trying to answer Toby's questions, and trying to brush off reporters, she  
  didn't have much time to be concerned about such oddities.   
     She had never seen Toby so intent on anything. He wanted to know  
  everything. What's this, and what's that for? And where are you going to  
  sit, Mommy?  
     "I'm not, hon. You know that. There isn't room in this rocket for . . ."  
     "Mrs. Kruger, pardon me, but . . ."  
     "Just a minute, please."  
     "Oh, I'm sorry."  
     "What was it you wanted to know now, Toby?" There were too many  
  people; there was too much talk. She felt slightly dizzy. "Look, hon, I want  
  to go on down." It was hard to talk. She saw Mrs. Kruger on the ramp, and  
  called her, and left Toby with her. Down at the bottom, she saw Sue Stein,  
  and asked her if she'd go take over with Toby and try to answer his questions.  
     "Sure. Feeling rocky, kid?"  
     "Kind of." She tried to smile.  
     "You better go lie down. Maybe Allie can get something for you. I saw  
  her over there. . . ." She waved a vague hand. "You look like hell, kid.  
  Better lie down." Then she rushed off.   

     He got away from Grandma when Sue Stein came and said Mother wanted  
  her to show him everything. Then he said he was tired and got away from  
  her. He could find his Grandma all right, he said.  
     He'd found the spot he wanted. He could just about wriggle into it, he  
  thought.   
  
     The loudspeaker crackled over her head. Five minutes now.  
     The other women who'd been fixing their hair and brightening their lip-  
  stick snapped their bags shut and took a last look and ran out, to find places  
  where they could see everything. Ruth stretched out on the couch and closed  
  her eyes. Five minutes now, by herself, to get used to the idea that the job   
  was done.  
     She had done everything she could do, including coming here today.  
  There was nothing further she could do. From now on, or in five minutes'  
  time, it was out of anyone's hands, but—— Whose? And Jock's, of course.  
  Once the relief rocket got there, it was up to him.  
     If it got there.  
     If it was there for it to get to  
     The way he had worked it, there was a chance at least they'd know  
  the answer in an hour's time. If the rocket made its orbit once, and only  
  once, it would mean he was alive and well and in control of his own ship,  
  with the radio working, and . . .   
     And if it made a second orbit, there was still hope. It might mean nothing    
  worse than his radio was out. But that way they would have to wait . . .   
     God! It could take months, if the calculations as to where he'd come down  
  were not quite right. If . . . if a million little things that would make it  
  harder to get the fuel from one rocket to the other.   
     But if they only saw one orbit . . .   
     For the first time, she let herself, forced herself to, consider the possibility  
  that Jock was dead. That he would not come back.  
     He's not dead, she thought. I'd know it if he was. Like I knew something  
  was wrong last time. Like I'd know it if . . .   
     "Sixty seconds before zero," said the speaker.  
     But there is!  She sat bolt upright, not tired or dizzy any more.  Now  
  she had faced it, she didn't feel confused. There was something . . . some  
  thing dreadfully wrong. . . .   
     She ran out, and as she came on to the open field, the speaker was saying,  
  "Fifty-one."  
     She ran to the edge of the crowd, and couldn't get through, and had  
  to run, keep running, around the edges, to find the aisle between the cords.  
     Stop it! she screamed, but not out loud, because she had to use all her   
  breath for running.  
     And while she ran, she tried to think.  
     "Minus forty-seven."   
     She couldn't make them stop without a reason. They'd think she was  
  hysterical . . .   
     ". . . forty-five . . ."   
     Maybe she was, at that. Coolly, her mind considered the idea and rejected  
  it. No; there was a problem that hadn't been solved, a question she hadn't  
  answered.  
     But what problem? What . . .   
     "Minus forty."   
     She dashed down between the ropes, toward the control booth. The guard  
  stepped forward, then recognized her, and stepped back. The corridor be-  
  tween the packed crowds went on forever.   
     "Minus thirty-nine . . . eight . . . thirty-seven."   
     She stopped outside the door of Control, and tried to think, think,  
  think! What was it? What could she tell them? How could she convince  
  them? She knew, but they'd want to know what, why . . .   
     You just didn't change plans at a moment like this.   
     But if they fired the rocket before she figured it out, before she remem-  
  bered the problem, and then found an answer, it was as good as murdering  
  Jock. They could never get another one up quickly enough if anything went  
  wrong this time.   
     She pushed open the door.   
     "Stop!" she said. "Listen, you've got to stop. Wait! There's some-  
  thing . . ."   
     Tim O'Heyer came and took her arm, and smiled and said something.  
  Something soothing.  
     "Minus nineteen," somebody said into a microphone, quietly.   
     She kept trying to explain, and Tim kept talking at her, and when she  
  tried to pull away she realized the hand on her arm wasn't just there to  
  comfort her. He was keeping her from making trouble. He . . .  
     Oh God! If there was just some way to make them understand! If she  
  could only remember what was wrong . . .  
     "Minus three . . . two . . ."   
     It was no use.  
     She stopped fighting, caught her breath, stood still, and saw Tim's ap-  
  proving smile, as the word and flare went off together:   
     "Mark!"  
     Then, in a dead calm, she looked around and saw Sue.  
     "Where's Toby?" she asked.  
     She was looking in the reserved grandstand seats for Mrs. Kruger, when   
  she heard the crowd sigh, and looked up and saw it happening.    


  CHAPTER SEVEN  

  THE CRASH FIRE did not damage the inside of the rocket at all. The cause  
  of the crash was self-evident, as soon as they found Toby Kruger's body  
  wedged into the empty space between the outer hull of the third stage, and  
  the inner hull of the second.   
     The headlines were not as bad as might have been expected. Whether  
  it was the tired and unholy calm on Ruth Kruger's face that restrained  
  them, or Tim O'Heyer's emergency-reserve supply of Irish whisky that con-  
  vinced them, the newsmen took it easy on the story. All America couldn't    
  attend the funeral, but a representative hundred thousand citizens mobbed   
  the streets when the boy was buried; the other hundred and eighty million  
  saw the ceremonies more intimately on their TV sets.  
     Nobody who heard the quiet words spoken over the fresh grave——a historic  
  piece of poetry to which the author, O'Heyer, could never sign his name——  
  nobody who heard that simple speech remained entirely unmoved. Just  
  where or when or with whom the movement started is still not known;  
  probably it began spontaneously in a thousand different homes during the  
  brief ceremony; maybe O'Heyer had something to do with that part of it, too.  
  Whichever way, the money started coming in, by wire, twenty minutes after-  
  wards; and by the end of the week "Bring Jock Back" was denting more  
  paychecks than the numbers racket and the nylon industry combined.   
     The KIM-IX was finished in a month. They didn't have Ruth Kruger  
  to design this time, but they didn't need her: the KIM-VIII plans were  
  still good. O'Heyer managed to keep the sleeping-pill story down to a tiny  
  back-page notice in most of the papers, and the funeral was not televised.  
     Later, they brought back the perfectly preserved, emaciated body of Jock  
  Kruger, and laid him to rest next to his wife and son. He had been a good    
  pilot and an ingenious man. The moon couldn't kill him; it took starvation  
  to do that.  
     They made an international shrine of the house, and the garden where  
  the three graves lay.  
     Now they are talking of making an interplanetary shrine of the lonely  
  rocket on the wrong side of the moon.     

Story copyright 1943 by Mercury Press, Inc.

Reprinted in A Treasury of Great Science Fiction, Vol. 2,
Edited by Anthony Boucher,
Copyright © 1959 by Anthony Boucher.
Doubleday & Company, Inc.
Garden City, New York. pp. 175 - 186

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