with the moon out there! He doesn't feel what it is!"

White knew what the colonel meant. He himself had experienced a peculiar change of viewpoint on coming to the Space Station. Call it a change in Cosmic Perspective.

"You can't blame them if they lose interest a little," he said lamely. "It's been nothing but moon, moon in the news for years now. When Jessup landed, they had a right to expect something exciting. This thing is a terrible anti-climax."

"They expected the moon brought home to them, I suppose," sighed Markley. "Pictures, descriptions—that sort of thing. All they've got now is a dud firecracker. A small boy on a New York street can see more of the moon than Bob Jessup."

"You talked to him last. How was he?"

Markley shook his head, slowly, tiredly.

"His battery was running low. He hasn't tried to get out yet—says he thinks the dust will jam the lock, and maybe he's right. Maybe he'd better wait for those suggestions!"

For the hundredth time, White turned Jessup's problem over in his mind. He always thought of it as Jessup's problem, never having been able to identify himself with the midget-sized fanatic who had boarded the moon-ship. Markley, he knew, had envied the pilot like a shipwrecked sailor envies the free-winging albatross—but not he! That did not mean he didn't want to help. He felt the same desperate longing to help that people have always felt for submarine crews who vainly tap their calls for help on the sides of their sunken vessels—for buried well-diggers, or miners caught by cave-ins. But what could he—what could anyone—do?

"I wonder what he's doing now," said White softly.

Jessup lay in soft darkness, quiescent. He was in the Airlock. Rivulets of sweat ran down his prone body inside the pressure suit and the incoming air was an icy sword in his back. For forty hours now the rocket's cabin had been growing warmer as the unseen sun above blazed on the dust. He had turned off the friendly chug-chug of the air conditioner to conserve power, and the heat was becoming unbearable.

What was it he had to do? Was it better than roasting alive? Oh, well—

He kicked clumsily at the pedal which actuated the outer door of the airlock. The door plug scraped unpleasantly on his metal boots as it slid 

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