cious volition of what he was doing. He drew her
tighter, while a great clot of emotion set fire to his brain. He--

Cold beyond anything he had known bit at him. A tremendous pressure
within him seemed about to force him to explode outwards, and the
shock jerked him into full awareness.

In a split second, he swung his eyes from the great, jagged landscape
on which he stood, up an impossible range of mountains that were all
harsh blacks and cold whites, to a cold black sky in which the stars
were blazing specks without a flicker. He saw the Earth above him,
bigger than the moon had ever been, and with the dim outlines of
continents showing through the soft stuff that must be clouds.

He was on the moon! And naked, without air!

* * * * *

Almost at once, something clapped down around him, and the pressure
let up, while heat seemed to leap into the rocks under his feet and
make them comfortable. He gulped down the air that somehow seemed to
stay close to him, instead of evaporating into the vacuum.

The moon! Now they had him!

Fear blazed in him--a stark, unreasoning terror that was like a
physical thing. _Run--but you can't run! They've got you! You can't
escape!_

The light blotted out, and then snapped on, more strongly. He stood in
the kitchen of the cold-water apartment, still naked, with bits of
chalky dust between his toes.

He had no time for reason. His brain seemed to have jumped over a
hurdle and come down in a puddle beyond, foul with the stuff it had
found there. He heard Ellen shriek, and then cry out again.

He lurched into the bedroom, while she let out another gurgling cry as
the light showed him in the doorway. She came out of the bed, leaping
for him, crying his name--cold sober! But he wanted none of her act.
He shook her off.

"You damned alien! You filthy monster, disguised as a girl! When you
get in a spot where I'm sure to find you out, you have a cute trick up
your sleeve--but it won't work. You can send me back there--back to
the rest of your kind, from wherever they came. But you won't fool me
into thinking you're human again. You can't pass one test!"

He wouldn't be fooled into thinking it was a dream, either. He'd been
physically on the moon--the very dust on his feet proved that. They
might drive him insane, but they wouldn't do it that way.

She was crying now, gasping out words that he only half heard. "I'm
human, Will. Oh, I'm human!"

"