Barlow grinned. "A nice speech, but I already know those things. What
I'm really interested in is what I'm supposed to do."

So the man explained to Barlow some things about why he was going on a
one-way trip to the moon in a rocket intended for no man to be in, in
a rocket intended for no living thing.

After the man had gone, Barlow quickly snapped on the radio again, and
he felt better with the music and human voices. For a moment there, he
had seemed to feel a tinge of fear. What the devil? Psyche-screening?
So he was capable of fear; who wasn't? He didn't need psyching. What
indignity to the individual--to have the fingerprints of psychiatrists
all over your brain!

_I'm Hal Barlow! The first man into space. The first man to the Moon!_

He had gotten to the rocket-launching site early and had sat in the
moonlight smoking a cigarette. He felt odd inside and he didn't know
why. The moon had a cold effect on him. He was worried, about himself.

The whole area had been painted and disguised with all the arts of
camouflage; everything appearing from the air looked like sand and
sage and rock and hill. The rocket itself was built inside the hill,
which served as a giant launching-barrel to guide the rocket with the
exact accuracy demanded in its take-off.

The moon had loomed large and still and cold.

"_... ten, nine, eight...._"

So he was back inside the suit, inside the rocket, jammed into a
barrel like a wad of ammo. Now he was beginning to see what might
cause his terror. His Achilles Heel. But it was too late. What would
they have found if they'd psyched him?

A wild kid--old, but still driven by the urges of a kid who hadn't
grown up. A lot of surface things, the inside of him covered over.
Obsessed with exterior things, he had never given himself a chance to
see inside himself. Afraid. Always been with people, beer, women,
bars, juke-boxes, noises, excitement. Never alone--

No parents that he could remember. He'd run away from the middle-west
orphanage and heard about the Brotherhood from a friendly priest, and
the priest had taken him into the organization. Strictly for kicks
though, Barlow had warned. The priest had smiled with wisdom--"You
don't know your own true motives, my boy."

"_... seven, six, five, four...._"

* * * * *

Just Hal Barlow. That was all right, but the real Hal Barlow was
unknown. He'd never realized, with all his screaming about
individ