on the sleeve of his
fancy, blue dress uniform. "Gosh but Ma would be proud to hear about
all what's happened to us. I purely wish I could tell her."

Harry snapped up from the bureau drawer where he had been placing his
clothing.

"Watch it, Jed. You know what the general said. Now don't you go and
queer this deal for us just because you're getting a little homesick,"
Harry warned. "We're the only Army GI's in this outfit and this is
pretty plush. You know what the general said, 'no talking with Ma
until you get permission.' Remember?"

Jed sighed. "Oh, I remember, rightly enough. Only I shore wish they'd
let me just think 'hello' to her. I ain't never been so far from her
afore and its gonna take a heap of powerful mind-talk to get to her."

"Never you mind, now Jed," Harry said, "you'll get all the chances you
want to talk with her. Just be patient."

He turned back to his clothing. The was a knock at the door and then
it opened to admit a small, conservatively-dressed civilian. Both
sergeants jumped to their feet.

"Good morning, gentlemen," the civilian said. "I'm George Wadsworth,
first secretary at the Embassy here." He looked around the room and
smiled. "Your quarters satisfactory, men?" Both soldiers nodded
happily.

"Good," Wadsworth said. "Oh, by the way Sergeant Cromwell," he turned
to Jed, "we've just learned that our hosts plan to launch their manned
Moon rocket within the next hour or so. Isn't that interesting?"

Jed nodded vigorously.

"I though so, too," Wadsworth continued. "I should imagine that your
mother would find this quite interesting as well, don't you think,
Sergeant Cromwell?"

"'Deed she would, sir," Jed said enthusiastically.

"Quite so," Wadsworth said mildly. "Why don't you just take the rest
of the day off and tell her about it. While you're at it, you might
bring her up to date on your trip. And there's a wonderful view of the
Kremlin from this window. I'm sure she'll be interested in all this.
Just have a nice long chat. Take all day. Take two days if you like.
No hurry, you know."

He smiled and turned to leave the room. "Don't forget to tell her
about your airplane ride, too," he added and then walked to the door.

"Thank you, sir," Jed called out after him.

Jed grinned happily and lay down on the nice, soft mattress.

"Ma," he thought, concentrating harder than he ever did before, "it's
me agin."

All electrical power went off over the western dominions of the