months ago, and I ... well, I wanted to wish you luck. I wish I were going to Venus with you."

They considered him without particular emotion, three dark, compact men in their late twenties, calm with the nerveless poise of long indoctrination and utterly sure of themselves. Hovic, bluntest of the three, ignored Hanlon and went directly to the bathroom to brush his teeth.

"You lost your chance when you flunked training, Hanlon," Geddes said. "Just now you're a definite irritant, and we can't afford being upset just before the flight. You'll have to go."

Hanlon avoided his eyes, looking thoroughly hangdog and disreputable. He needed a shave badly and his careless clothing had been slept in more than once.

"I could have borne the surgical operations," he said. "A man's appendix and tonsils and teeth can be dangerous in space or on another planet where he can't get medical attention—but their damned psycho-conditioning was too much. How could I know what I'd really be like when those cold-blooded Foundation specialists got through with me?"

"It takes a specially adapted kind of man to beat space," Geddes pointed out patiently. "We can't risk neurosis out there, any more than we can risk appendicitis or abscessed teeth. The Foundation learned a lot from those first three failures, Hanlon. This time it's not repeating its old errors."

Hovic came out of the bathroom, replacing his dentures. He was the heaviest of the crew, a muscular Slav with the unimaginative man's natural directness. "You're washed up, Hanlon. Why don't you get out and leave us alone?"

At the door Hanlon hesitated, his face averted. "You'll be blasting off in another six hours, leaving everything behind. You will be heroes when you come back and you'll be rich...."

Geddes felt his lip curling. "But right now we've no use for our spare credits, is that it? You'd like to make a last touch before we go, and if we don't come back the debt won't worry you, Hanlon."

Lowe came between them, digging out his wallet. He was a slender, sensitive sort, the only one of the three who had been really friendly with Hanlon before the Irishman's congenital wildness led to his discharge.

"Let it go, Ged. What do a few credits mean to us now?"

He emptied his wallet, dropping yellow notes into Hanlon's ready hands. After a moment 

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