uble-making than any hot rod group had ever been. Paul
Hendricks was either a fine, helpful citizen--among so many who were
disinterested and preoccupied--or a corrupting Socrates who deserved to
drink hemlock.

Frank Nelsen knew all this as well as most. He had been acquainted with
Paul ever since, at the age of seven, he had come into the store and had
tried to make a down payment on a model building kit for a Y-71
ground-to-orbit freight rocket--clearly marked $49.95 in the display
window--with his fortune of a single dime. Frank had never acquired a
Y-71 kit, but he had found a friend in Paul Hendricks, and a place to
hang around and learn things he wanted to know. Later on, as now, he had
worked in the store whenever he had some free time.

Frank leaned against a lathe, watching the others, the frosty thrill and
soul-searching hidden inside himself. Maybe it was hard to guess what
Eileen Sands, standing near, was thinking, but she was the firm kind who
would have a definite direction. Perhaps unconsciously, she hummed a
tune under her breath, while her feet toyed with graceful steps. No
doubt, her mind was also on the Big Vacuum beyond the Earth.

But what is there about a dangerous dream? When it is far out of reach,
it has a safe, romantic appeal. Bring its fulfillment a little closer,
and its harsh aspects begin to show. You get a kick out of that, but you
begin to wonder nervously if you have the guts, the stamina, the
resistance to loneliness and complete strangeness.

Looking at a real Archie--with a friend inside it, even--did this to
Frank Nelsen. But he could see similar reactions in some of the others.

Mitch Storey sat, bent forward, on a box, staring at his big, sepia
hands, in which he tossed back and forth a tiny, clear capsule
containing a fuzzy fragment of vegetation from Mars. He had bought this
sealed curio from Paul a year ago for fifty dollars--souvenirs that came
from so far were expensive. And now, in view of what was happening to
hopeful colonists of that once inhabited and still most Earth-like other
planet, ownership of such a capsule on Earth seemed about to be banned,
not only by departments of agriculture, but by bodies directly concerned
with public safety.

Did the color photographs of Mars, among all the others that the Bunch
had thumbtacked to the shop walls, still appeal as strongly to Mitch?
Did he still want to go out to that world of queer, swirled markings,
like the fluid