the shadows outside that never seem to go away, even under the glare of neon. They've never had a chance to plan, to live with any hope for the future. Burdened down by anxiety, they've built up a defense of falseness, and underneath, the terrible fear of the atomic bomb is a constant inner sickness!"

Barlow grinned. "A nice speech, but I already know those things. What I'm really interested in is what I'm supposed to do."

So the man explained to Barlow some things about why he was going on a one-way trip to the moon in a rocket intended for no man to be in, in a rocket intended for no living thing.

After the man had gone, Barlow quickly snapped on the radio again, and he felt better with the music and human voices. For a moment there, he had seemed to feel a tinge of fear. What the devil? Psyche-screening? So he was capable of fear; who wasn't? He didn't need psyching. What indignity to the individual—to have the fingerprints of psychiatrists all over your brain!

I'm Hal Barlow! The first man into space. The first man to the Moon!

He had gotten to the rocket-launching site early and had sat in the moonlight smoking a cigarette. He felt odd inside and he didn't know why. The moon had a cold effect on him. He was worried, about himself.

The whole area had been painted and disguised with all the arts of camouflage; everything appearing from the air looked like sand and sage and rock and hill. The rocket itself was built inside the hill, which served as a giant launching-barrel to guide the rocket with the exact accuracy demanded in its take-off.

The moon had loomed large and still and cold.

"... ten, nine, eight...."

So he was back inside the suit, inside the rocket, jammed into a barrel like a wad of ammo. Now he was beginning to see what might cause his terror. His Achilles Heel. But it was too late. What would they have found if they'd psyched him?

A wild kid—old, but still driven by the urges of a kid who hadn't grown up. A lot of surface things, the inside of him covered over. Obsessed with exterior things, he had never given himself a chance to see inside himself. Afraid. Always been with people, beer, women, bars, juke-boxes, noises, excitement. Never alone—

No parents that he could remember. He'd run away from the middle-west orphanage and heard about the Brotherhood from a friendly priest, and the priest had taken him into the organization. Strictly for kicks though, Barlow had warned. The priest had smiled with wisdom—"You don't know your own true motives, my boy."

"... seven, six, five, four...."

ust Hal Barlow. That was all right, but the real Hal Barlow was unknown. He'd never realized, with all his screaming about individualism, how much he'd depended on people. He had loved no one. He had seemed to love them when he was with them, but could never form any solid associations. Now all the people he had never really known became as shadows thrown upon the wall of his brain. He felt the sweat soaking his skin. Alone. Destined for it like a twin, whose double has died at birth. Always—in league with those on the other side of the looking-glass.

"... three... two...."

He screamed; no, I can't do it, I can't face it—

Someone—listen—

The dull muted explosion miles away, and the terrific compression and the wash of numbing, deafening sound beating back around him. Everything inside him seeming to whirl up and come down in a crash. The seeming to slide around in the dihedrals of time and space, slipping in and out of being like a ball-bearing in a maze....

First man to the moon. In a rocket meant for no man. Not a rocket. A coffin—on a one-way trip—

And I—maybe the one, the very one they should never have sent.

With