er had been pretty disturbing, however. And next
day, Thursday, the blue envelopes came to the members of the Bunch. A
printed card with a typed-in date, was inside each: "Report for
space-fitness tests at Space-Medicine Center, February 15th..."

"Just a couple of weeks!" Two-and-Two was moaning that night. "How'll I
get through, with my courses only half-finished. You've gotta help me
some more, people! With that stinking math...!"

So equipment building was almost suspended, while the Bunch crammed and
sweated and griped and cursed. But maybe now some of them wouldn't care
so very much if they flunked.

Two loaded automobiles took off for Minneapolis on the night before the
ordeal. The Bunch put up at motels to be fresh the next morning. Maybe
some of them even slept.

At the Center, there were more forms to fill out. Then complete
physicals started the process. Next came the written part. Right off,
Frank Nelsen knew that this was going a familiar way, which had
happened quite often at Tech: Struggle through a tough course, hear dire
promises of head-cracking questions and math problems in the final quiz.
Then the switch--the easy letdown.

The remainder of the tests proceeded like assembly-line operations, each
person taking each alone, in the order of his casual position in the
waiting line.

First there was the dizzying, mind-blackening centrifuge test, to see if
you could take enough Gs of acceleration, and still be alert enough to
fit a simple block puzzle together.

Then came the free fall test, from the top of a thousand foot tower. A
parachute-arrangement broke your speed at the bottom of the track. As in
the centrifuge, instruments incorporated into the fabric of a coverall
suit with a hood, were recording your emotional and bodily reactions.
The medics wanted to be sure that your panic level was high and cool.
Nelsen didn't find free fall very hard to take, either.

Right after that came the scramble to see how fast you could get into an
Archer, unfold and inflate a bubb and rig its gear.

"That's all, Mister," the observer with the camera told Nelsen in a
bored tone.

"Results will be mailed to your home within twelve hours--Mr. Nelsen," a
girl informed him as she read his name from a printed card.

So the Bunch returned tensely to Jarviston, with more time to sweat out.
Everybody looked at Gimp Hines--and then looked away. Even Jig Hollins
didn't make any comments. Gimp, himself, seemed pret