atis Base, seventeenth month-day, sixteenth hour. (There was a
chime) Lunar Projects Placement is here to serve you. Plastics-chemists,
hydroponics specialists, machinists, mechanics, metallurgists, miners,
helpers--all are urgently needed. The tax-free pay will startle you.
Free subsistence and quarters. Here at Serene, at Tycho Station or at a
dozen other expanding sites..."

Charlie Reynolds sat with Frank Nelsen while he listened. "The lady has
a swell voice," said Charlie. "Otherwise, it _sounds_ good, too. But I'm
one that's going farther. To Venus--just being explored. All fresh, and
no man-made booby traps, at least. Maybe they'll even figure out a way
to make it rotate faster, give it a reasonably short day, and a
breathable atmosphere--make a warmer second Earth out of it...
Sometimes, when you jump farther, you jump over a lot of trouble. Better
than going slow, with the faint-hearts. Their muddling misfortunes begin
to stick to you. I'd rather be Mitch, headed for heebie-jeebie Mars, or
the Kuzaks, aiming for the crazy Asteroid Belt."

That was Charlie, talking to him--Frank Nelsen--like an older brother.
It made a sharp doubt in him, again. But then he grinned.

"Maybe I am a slow starter," he said. "The Moon is near and humble, but
some say it's good training--even harsher than space. And I don't want
to bypass and miss anything. Oh, hell, Charlie--I'll get farther, soon,
too! But I really don't even know what I'll do, yet. Got to wait and see
how the cards fall..."

Several hours before the rest of the Bunch curved into a slow orbit a
thousand miles above the Moon, Glen Tiflin set the ionic of his bubb for
full acceleration, and arced away, outward, perhaps toward the Belt.

"So long, all you dumb slobs!" his voice hissed in their helmet-phones.
"Now I get really lost! If you ever cross my path again, watch your
heads..."

Art Kuzak's flare of anger died. "Good riddance," he breathed. "How long
will he last, alone? Without a space-fitness card, the poor idiot
probably imagines himself a big, dangerous renegade, already."

Joe Kuzak's answering tone almost had a shrug in it. "Don't jinx our
luck, twin brother," he said. "For that matter, how long will _we_
last...? Mex, did you toss Tiflin back his shiv?"

"A couple of hours ago," Ramos answered mildly.

Everybody was looking down at the Moon, whose crater-pocked ugliness and
beauty was sparsely dotted with the blue spots of stellene domes, many