Something unexplainable happened up there—exactly what, we don’t know. That’s why it was decided the next team should include someone with the psychological qualifications of a pilot. I saw no reason to turn down their request. Chances are, nothing sensational is going to happen. Of course you’ll have to keep your eyes and ears open. But remember, you’re not up there to play detective; no one is expecting any startling new discoveries or breakthroughs in the case. No, that’s not your mission. What’s the matter? Aren’t you feeling well?”

“Huh? No, no—I feel fine,” answered Pirx.

“I thought so. Well, think you can behave sensibly? Unless I’m mistaken, it’s already going to your head. Maybe we should call off—”

“I will behave sensibly,” said Pirx in the most emphatic voice he could muster.

“I doubt it,” said the commandant. “I’m sending you up there with some reluctance. If it weren’t for the grade—”

“The dip!” Pirx let it slip.

The commandant pretended not to have heard this last remark. He gave him the papers first, then his hand.

“Takeoff tomorrow at zero eight hundred hours. Travel light. You’ve been up there before, so you know what it’s like. Here’s your plane ticket and your reservation on the Transgalactic. You’ll fly straight to Luna Base; from there you’ll be transferred.”

He added a few more words. To wish him luck? By way of farewell? Pirx couldn’t tell. He was too far away in his thoughts to comprehend. His ears were already full of the roar of boosting rockets, his eyes blinded by the desiccating white glare of rocky lunar terrain, his face wrought with stunned bewilderment—the same look that must have accompanied the two Canadians to their mysterious deaths. He did an about-face and bumped into the large globe by the window; took the front steps in four lunarlike bounds; and was nearly run over by a car, whose screeching brakes brought everyone—excluding Pirx—to a standstill. Luckily the commandant had gone back to his papers and thus was spared this opening display of “sensible behavior.”