bered her. Make-up brought back some
of her good-looks. She was more Spartan than they had thought, too.

"I have made up a basket of sandwiches for you and your comrades,
Lester," she said.

Otto Kramer was out with free hotdogs, beer and Pepsi, his face sad. J.
John Reynolds, backer of the Bunch, had promised to come down, later.
Chief of Police, Bill Hobard, was there, looking grim, as if he was half
glad and half sorry to lose this passel of law-abiding but worrisome
young eccentrics. There were various cynical and curious loafers around,
too. There were Chippie Potter and his mutt--a more wistful and
worshipping pair would have been hard to imagine.

Sophia Jameson, one of Charlie Reynolds' old flames, was there. Charlie
had sold his car and given away his wardrobe, but he still managed to
look good in a utilitarian white coverall.

"Well, we had a lot of laughs, anyway, you big ape!" Sophia was saying
to Charlie, when Roy Harder, the mailman with broken-down feet, shuffled
up, puffing.

"One for you, Reynolds," he said. "Also one for you, Nelsen. They just
came--ordinarily I wouldn't deliver them till tomorrow morning. But you
see how it is."

A long, white envelope was in Frank Nelsen's hands. In its upper
left-hand corner was engraved:

UNITED STATES SPACE FORCE
RECRUITING SECTION
WASHINGTON, D.C.

"Jeez, Frankie--Charlie--you made it--open 'em, quick!" Two-and-Two
said.

Frank was about to do so. But everybody knew exactly what was inside
such an envelope--the only thing that was ever so enclosed, unless you
were already in the Force. An official summons to report, on such and
such a date and such and such a place, for examination.

For a minute Frank Nelsen suffered the awful anguish of indecision over
a joke of circumstance. Like most of the others, he had tried to get
into the Force. He had given it up as hopeless. Now, when he was ready
to move out on his own, the chance came. Exquisite irony.

Frank felt the lift of maybe being one of--well--the Chosen. To wear the
red, black and silver rocket emblem, to use the finest equipment, to
carry out dangerous missions, to exercise authority in space, and yet to
be pampered, as those who make a mark in life are pampered.

"_Que milagro!_--holy cow!" Ramos breathed.
"Charlie--Frankie--congratulations!"

Frank saw the awed faces around them. They were looking up to him and
Charlie in a friendly way