she said, "there's a Mr. Madison here to see you. He lays
claim to be from the Star Project."

He could come in and file his claim, I told the girl.

I rummaged in the wastebasket and uncrumpled the morning's facsimile
newspaper. It was full of material about the Star Project.

We were building Man's first interstellar spaceship.

* * * * *

A surprising number of people considered it important. Flipping from the
rear to page one, Wild Bill Star in the comics who had been blasting all
the way to forty-first sub-space universe for decades was harking back
to the good old days of Man's first star flight (which he had made
himself through the magic of time travel), the editor was calling the
man to make the jaunt the Lindbergh of Space, and the staff photographer
displayed a still of a Space Force pilot in pressure suit up front with
his face blotted out by an air-brushed interrogation mark.

Who was going to be the Lindbergh of Space?

We had used up the Columbus of Space, the Magellan of Space, the Van
Reck of Space. Now it was time for the Lone Eagle, one man who would
wait out the light years to Alpha Centauri.

I remembered the first Lindbergh.

I rode a bus fifty miles to see him at an Air Force Day celebration when
I was a dewy-eared kid. It's funny how kids still worship heroes who did
everything before they were even born. Uncle Max had told me about
standing outside the hospital with a bunch of boys his own age the
evening Babe Ruth died of cancer. Lindbergh seemed like an old man to me
when I finally saw him, but still active. Nobody had forgotten him. When
his speech was over I cheered him with the rest just as if I knew what
he had been talking about.

But I probably knew more about what he meant then as a boy than I did
feeling the reality of the newspaper in my hands. Grown-up, I could only
smile at myself for wanting to go to the stars myself.

Madison rapped on my office door and breezed in efficiently.

I've always thought Madison was a rather irritating man. Likable but
irritating. He's too good looking in an unassuming masculine way to
dress so neatly--it makes him look like a mannequin. That polite way of
his of using small words slowly and distinctly proves that he loves his
fellow man--even if his fellow always does have less brains or authority
than Madison himself. That belief would be forgivable in him if it
wasn't so often true.

Madison folded himse