“It’s Admiral Dickenson’s task to select the man,” the chairman interposed. “And he tells us Jason. Let us send for Jason.”

The committee picked up caps and files and papers, and dispersed. Some of them took the train across the plateau from Base into the lights and civilization of Moon City; others returned to their offices nearby.

Admiral Dickenson wrote an order and tossed it into his tray. It was picked up by a messenger, delivered to another office, recorded, and passed on to signals. Two hours later a radio man hammered it out with a host of other messages, orders, advice and information, all crammed together on the high-speed transmitter. It went out on a tight beam from a parabolic aerial carefully aimed towards a point many millions of miles out in space. The receiving aerial of Advanced Fighter Base picked up the whole stream of messages, drew them down into the interior of the rock and sorted them out.

Here the order hung fire for a week, for Lieutenant Jason was out on patrol. At the end of that time he returned, received his instructions, and soon found himself traveling back to Moon Base as passenger in a supply ship. When the transport touched down he got a lift in the ground-car over to Base, passed through the lock and was let loose among the maze of corridors and passages which burrowed into the side of the mountain.

He got a lift on a trolley along one of the main passages down as farts stores, and here he drew his kit, and changed from operational rig into uniform—a neat, almost-new, well-pressed black uniform, with the scarlet and yellow rocket flare above the breast pocket.

The stores N.C.O. watched him pull on his cap and give it a tilt to one side.

“All set to give the girls a treat, sir?” he asked.

“I don’t know, Sergeant. I’ve got to report to one of the big shots. This visit is business.”