a man to see, but I saw it, and I saw the end of things in her eyes. A look of horror and fear. For one brief instant the shield was down, and I saw the terror and revulsion on her face and knew everything that was going through that mind of hers. And then the look disappeared, and she was walking back into the room, her face pale but composed, watching Bart with a kind of blank sadness in her eyes. "That's—that's wonderful, Bart," she said. "You didn't tell me you were taking it—"

He looked up reddening. "I hardly dared tell anyone. It was such a slender chance. I didn't see how I could possibly get through it—the psych part, particularly. I may have to go out and hang by my knees from the jets on the trips to keep myself from getting bored, but part of the test was interested in idle-time creativity, and they said I got through it better than anyone else—"

She was staring at him, her eyes wide. "That means you'll be going into Dillon's crew—"

"It means I have a chance! The final sifting hasn't been finished, there's a dozen more tests, a dozen performance checks, half a thousand conditioning tests I'd have to take—but don't you see what it means? It means I can go to space, Marny! It's a chance in a thousand, and it's mine! Dillon's cut the ice, he's had half a dozen ships up, but the real work's just begun. This puts me in on the ground floor, Marny. There's no end to the possibilities—"

She stared at him wordlessly. "But they say Dillon's an exploiter, Bart—a madman. He's out for what he can make out of it, and nothing more. You can't trust a man like that...."

Bart shrugged indifferently. "Stories," he said. "Dillon's a pioneer. Those who are afraid of space spread dirty stories, sure, but there's no proof. Anyway, I won't fly with Dillon. He just builds the ships, and his ships are the finest that can be built—"

"But Bart, it's a fool's errand!" The girl's eyes were huge, filling with tears. "You have a good job, a good home—you just can't go—"

He blinked at her, unbelieving. "With a chance like this? To go to space? I couldn't stay home—"

She looked at him, and then at me, with the strangest baffled pain in her eyes. She looked, suddenly, as though the bottom had dropped out of her world. "You—you mean that, Bart?"

The bafflement spread across Bart's face as he looked down at her. "Marny, I—I don't understand this. You know what I've wanted. I've told you 

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