ed. "You should
have seen them the last few days, waiting around the induction center,
a two-ton chip on each shoulder. Say, where _were_ you?"

"I--what do you mean?"

"I didn't see you until last evening. Suddenly, you were here."

"Did anyone else miss me?"

"But I remember you the first day."

"Did anyone else miss me? Any of the officials?"

"No. Not that I know of."

"Then I was here," Temple said, very seriously.

Arkalion smiled. "By George, of course. Then you were here. Temple,
we'll get along fine."

Temple said that was swell.

"Anyway, we'd better. Forever is a long time."

Three minutes later, the jet took off and soared on eager wings toward
the setting sun.

* * * * *

"Men, since we are leaving here in a few hours and since there is no
way to get out of the encampment and no place to go over the desert
even if you could," the microphone in the great, empty hall boomed as
the two files of men marched in, "there is no harm in telling you
where you are. From this point, in a limited sense, you shall be kept
abreast of your progress.

"We are in White Sands, New Mexico."

"The Garden Spot of the Universe!" someone shouted derisively,
remembering the bleak hot desert and jagged mountain peaks as they
came down.

"White Sands," muttered Arkalion. "It looks like space travel now,
doesn't it, Kit."

Temple shrugged. "Why?"

"White sands was the center of experiments in rocketry decades ago,
when people still talked about those things. Then, for a long time, no
one heard anything about White Sands. The rockets grew here, Kit."

"I can readily see why. You could look all your life without finding a
barren spot like this."

"Precisely. Someone once called this place--or was it some other place
like it?--someone once called it a good place to throw old razor
blades. If people still used razor blades."

The microphone blared again, after the several hundred men had entered
the great hall and milled about among the echoes. Temple could picture
other halls like this, other briefings. "Men, whenever you are given
instructions, in here or elsewhere, obey them instantly. Our job is a
big one, complicated and exacting. Attention to detail will save us
trouble."

Someone said, "My old man served a hitch in the army, back in the
sixties. That's what he always said, attention to details. The army is
crazy about things like that. Are we in the army or something?"