id you notice anything else?"

Lance nodded, grudgingly.

* * * * *

"What?"

"Look, colonel. If I answer your questions, will you answer mine?"

"Any reasonable ones, yes. That's what we're here for."

"Well, there was the disturbing thing about the _Cosmos XII_, itself. I
saw images of the ship riding along beside me, out there in the hype.
Where nothing material could possibly exist. Where not even light could
reflect back, or any other wave propagation." Lance shook his head,
recalling the experience. "What could have caused a hallucination like
that?"

"It was no hallucination, Lance. It was real and has happened before. We
can rest you easy on that point."

Colonel Nordsen removed tobacco from a pouch, stuffed his pipe, lit up.
Bluish smoke formed a halo about him.

"Lance, the Space Service has been sending ships through hyperspace for
nearly two years now. Only recently did anybody notice something was
seriously wrong with the pilots who came back. Up until then ... oh, a
pilot might act a little queer for a day or two. But who wouldn't,
cooped up alone in a steel projectile for four weeks? We thought very
little of it."

"Uh huh," was Lance Cooper's only comment.

Nordsen transferred his pipe to his hand. "But eventually, even the
Space Service gets around to putting two and two together on the
slipstick. The incidents kept piling up. A pilot comes back from Epsilon
Eridani, for example, and insists on giving everybody left-handed
salutes. Another has taken a scout ship to 61 Cygni. He insists at the
Officers Club that Colonel Sagen here has a nickname of 'Old Hard-Head'.
Nobody else on the base is aware of any such thing. Then, still another
pilot--"

"Wait a minute!" Lance interrupted. "Hasn't he?"

"Hasn't what? I don't follow you."

"Colonel Sagen. Hasn't he got that nickname? I mean, it was a term of
respect and liking, of course. But--"

"No," said Nordsen.

"No?" Lance echoed, disbelieving. "Since when?"

"Not since _ever_, major. Not on this particular track."

"Colonel Nordsen, you're losing me."

"Patience, please. I was about to tell you that still another pilot
lands on our base, and he wears a blue tie. Claims the Space Service has
always worn blue ties."

"I take it back," said Lance. "I'm a pilot and all pilots are slowly
going nuts." Then, it occurred to him to evince more interest or they
might ship him back to the brig sooner than expec