The commandant was busy writing when he came in. “Please be seated; I’ll be right with you,” he heard him say. At last, taking off his glasses—until about a year ago he had got along without them—the commandant gave him a good long gander, as if laying eyes on him for the first time. That was his way—not only with Pirx but with everyone. It was a gaze designed to rattle even the saintliest of men. And Pirx was hardly a saint. He couldn’t keep still. Either he found himself sprawled out in the grossly casual manner of a millionaire aboard his own private yacht, or precariously balanced on the edge of his seat. Finally—mercifully—the commandant broke the silence.

“Well, Pirx, how are things?”

He’d addressed him informally—a good omen. Pirx said he couldn’t kick.

“Took a dip, did you?”

Pirx nodded. Hey, what gives? Pirx kept his guard up. Maybe it was for sassing Dr. Grotius…

“There’s a trainee’s berth up on Mendeleev. Know where that is?”

“That’s an astrophysics station on the Far Side,” replied Pirx. He felt a slight letdown. He had been nurturing a quiet hope—so quiet he had been reluctant to admit it to himself, for fear of blowing it—that it would be something else. Like a flight mission. With all the ships and planets in the cosmos, he would have to land a routine station assignment, and on the Far Side, no less. Once the “in” term for the lunar hemisphere not facing Earth, it was now in common parlance.

“Right. Do you know what it looks like?” asked the commandant, wearing a facial expression that said he had something up his sleeve. Pirx briefly toyed with the idea of bluffing.

“No,” he answered.

“If you sign on, I’ll supply you with all the specs.” The commandant patted a stack of papers.

“You mean it’s voluntary?” Pirx shot back with undisguised alacrity.

“Correct. The mission I have in mind is… could turn out to be… very—”