spoke their thanks. For the time being, Frank was free to
breathe open air under big, stellene domes. But he didn't know in what
web of questioning and accusation he might soon be entangled.

Looking back to his first action against Rodan--with a sharpened trowel
that had pierced the wall of a stellene dome--eventually leading up to
Dutch's death, and very nearly precipitating his own demise and that of
his other companions, he wondered if it wouldn't be regarded as
criminal. Now he wasn't absolutely sure, himself, that it hadn't been
criminal--or Moonmad. Yet he didn't hate Xavier Rodan any less.

"The S.O.B. might just get sent to a mental hospital--at the worst,"
Gimp growled loyally. "Well, come on, Frank--let's forget it, ditch our
Archies at the Hostel, get a culture steak, and look around to see what
you've missed..."

So that was how Frank Nelsen began to get acquainted with
Serene--fifteen thousand population, much of it habitually transient; a
town of vast aspirations, careful discipline, little spotless cubicles
for living quarters, pay twenty dollars a day just for the air you
breathe, Earth-beer twenty dollars a can, a dollar if synthesized
locally. Hydroponic sunflowers, dahlias, poppies, tomatoes, cabbages,
all grown enormous in this slight gravity. New chemical-synthesis
plants, above ground and far below; metal refineries, shops making
electronic and nuclear devices, and articles of fabric, glass, rubber,
plastic, magnesium. A town of supply warehouses and tanks around a great
space port; a town of a thousand unfinished enterprises, and as many
paradoxes and inconveniencies. No water in fountains, water in toilets
only during part of an Earth-day. English, French, Spanish, German,
Greek and Arabic spoken, to mention a few of the languages. An
astronomical observatory; a selenographic museum, already open, though
less than half completed. And of course it was against the law not to
work for more than seventy-two consecutive hours. And over the whole
setup there seemed to hang the question: Can Man really live in space,
or does his invasion of it signal his final downfall?

At a certain point, Nelsen gave up trying to figure out all of the
aspects of Serene. Of course he and Gimp had one inevitable goal. There
was a short walk, Gimp hopping along lightly; then there was an elevator
ride downward, for the place, aggressively named _The First Stop_, was
nestled cosily in the lava-rock underlying the dus