ton, darkening the screen. "Dream
boy. Tom, you damned fool." He got up and scuffed into the bathroom to
stare into the mirror. Twenty-five years old, and already lines were
grooving both sides of his nostrils. Tousled black hair like brush
hanging over a high bank, and ridged creases in his forehead. Little
lumps of flesh bulging over the corners of his mouth from constant
tension. The tension of outwitting space on each trip 'tween the
planets. But worst of all was the look in his gray eyes. The look that
never went away anymore. The look of a man who has spent too much time
staring into the enigma of the Universe and--thinking.

"I'm scared--scared as hell!" he blurted at his reflection. "And if I
don't get hold of myself, I'm through--washed up!"

Space was no place for a man with imagination--too much imagination.
You stared into the empty blackness here, you stared into the inky
blackness there, behind you the Earth a tiny pinpoint, the Earth that
meant rock solid footing, the caress of wind and land in all
directions. But out there in the aching void you raced for Mars like a
mouse scuttling across a lighted floor. Raced because of what you
couldn't see, couldn't fathom. Yet, you knew _It_ was out there,
staring back inscrutably.

He rubbed the flat of his hand across his right cheek, sighing from
emotional weariness. Then he scuffed back into the room. On the way he
collected a bottle of bourbon, mixer and glass, and dropped into the
big chair.

As he worked on the bottle, all the anxiety and apprehension in him
faded. Once he stared at the bottom of his empty glass. Funny how a
guy could panic all of a sudden. He remembered it clearly now. Riding
into town yesterday from the rocket port, he started brooding over
details of Project Venture. Suddenly, an overwhelming black tide of
fear worse than he had ever experienced confronted him. Like a man on
the verge of insanity he licked his dry lips, staring about him and
feeling as if something strange and terrible were taking possession of
his mind. And in the middle of his spell a cloud blacker than space
itself started reaching for him. That was when he yelled to the
startled bus driver to let him out at this hotel. Maybe he could get
hold of himself here.

Now, his arms sprawled over the sides of the heavy chair, he drifted
off into a snoring stupor.

* * * * *

In the morning he awoke to a splitting headache. Somehow it hel