st yet. The two ships must pass together through the neutral-point
where the gravities of Earth and Moon exactly cancel out. They must fall
together toward the Moon. Forty miles above the lunar surface
such-and-such rockets were to be fired. At twenty miles, such-and-such
others. At five miles the Moonship itself must fire its remaining
fuel-store. With luck, it was a toss-up. Safety or a smash.

But there was a long time to wait. Joe and his crew relaxed in the space
tug. The Chief looked out a port and observed:

"I can see the ring-mountains now. Naked-eye stuff, too! I wonder if
anybody ever saw that before!"

"Not likely," said Joe.

Mike stared out a port. Haney looked, also.

"How're we going to get back, Joe?"

"The Moonship has rockets on board," Joe told him. "Only they can't
stick them in the firing-racks outside. They're stowed away, all
shipshape, Navy fashion. After we land, we'll ask politely for rockets
to get back to the Platform with. It'll be a tedious run. Mostly
coasting--falling free. But we'll make it."

"If everything doesn't blow when we land," said the Chief.

Joe said uncomfortably: "It won't. Not that somebody won't try." Then he
stopped. After a moment he said awkwardly: "Look! It's necessary that we
humans get to the stars, or ultimately we'll crowd the Earth until we
won't be able to stay human. We'd have to have wars and plagues and such
things to keep our numbers down. It--it seems to me, and I--think it's
been said before, that it looks like there's something, somewhere,
that's afraid of us humans. It doesn't want us to reach the stars. It
didn't want us to fly. Before that it didn't want us to learn how to
cure disease, or have steam, or--anything that makes men different from
the beasts."

Haney turned his head. He listened intently.

"Maybe it sounds--superstitious," said Joe uneasily, "but there's always
been somebody trying to smash everything the rest of us wanted. As
if--as if something alien and hateful went around whispering
hypnotically into men's ears while they slept, commanding them
irresistibly to do things to smash all their own hopes."

The Chief grunted. "Huh! D'you think that's new stuff, Joe?"

"N-no," admitted Joe. "But it's true. Something fights us. You can make
wild guesses. Maybe--things on far planets that know that if ever we
reach there.... There's something that hates men and it tries to make us
destroy ourselves."

"Sure," said Haney mildly.