And then, when the hands I’d clasped behind me had almost squeezed their blood back into my wrists, I heard the door open and four pairs of feet clatter into the room. The door closed and the four pairs of feet clicked to attention.

I turned around.

They were saluting me. Well, what the hell, I told myself, they were supposed to be saluting me, I was their commanding officer. I returned the salute, and four arms whipped down smartly.

I said, “At ease.” They snapped their legs apart, arms behind them. I thought about it. I said, “Rest.” They relaxed their bodies slightly. I thought about it again. I said, “Hell, men, sit down and let’s meet each other.”

They sprawled into chairs and I hitched myself up on the instructor’s desk. We stared back and forth. Their faces were rigid, watchful; they weren’t giving anything away.

I wondered what my face looked like. In spite of all the orientation lectures, in spite of all the preparation, I must admit that my first glimpse of them had hit me hard. They were glowing with health, normality, and hard purpose. But that wasn’t it.

That wasn’t it at all.

What was making me want to run out of the door, out of the building, was something I’d been schooling myself to expect since that last briefing session in Arizona Base. Four dead men were staring at me. Four very famous dead men.

The big man, lounging all over his chair, was Roger Grey, who had been killed over a year ago when he rammed his tiny scout ship up the forward jets of an Eoti flagship. The flagship had been split neatly in two. Almost every medal imaginable and the Solar Corona. Grey was to be my co-pilot.