g about the expedition. Nine
years, and all that careful secrecy, all that expenditure of money and
mind-cracking research--and it had come to this. Waiting to be wiped
out, in a blast from some unimaginable weapon. I understood Monroe's
last request. We often felt we were so secret that our immediate
superiors didn't even want us to know what we we were working on.
Scientists are people--they wish for recognition, too. I was hoping the
whole expedition would be written up in the history books, but it looked
unpromising.

* * * * *

Two hours later, the scout ship landed near the dome. The lock opened
and, from where I stood in the open door of our dome, I saw Monroe come
out and walk toward me.

I alerted Tom and told him to listen carefully. "It may be a trick--he
might be drugged...."

He didn't act drugged, though--not exactly. He pushed his way past me
and sat down on a box to one side of the dome. He put his booted feet up
on another, smaller box.

"How are you, Ben?" he asked. "How's every little thing?"

I grunted. "_Well?_" I know my voice skittered a bit.

He pretended puzzlement. "Well _what_? Oh, I see what you mean. The
other dome--you want to know who's in it. You have a right to be
curious, Ben. Certainly. The leader of a top-secret expedition like
this--Project Hush they call us, huh, Ben--finds another dome on the
Moon. He thinks he's been the first to land on it, so naturally he wants
to--"

"Major Monroe Gridley!" I rapped out. "You will come to attention and
deliver your report. Now!" Honestly, I felt my neck swelling up inside
my helmet.

Monroe just leaned back against the side of the dome. "That's the _Army_
way of doing things," he commented admiringly. "Like the recruits say,
there's a right way, a wrong way and an Army way. Only there are other
ways, too." He chuckled. "Lots of other ways."

"He's off," I heard Tom whisper over the telephone. "Ben, Monroe has
gone and blown his stack."

"They aren't extraterrestrials in the other dome, Ben," Monroe
volunteered in a sudden burst of sanity. "No, they're human, all right,
and from Earth. Guess _where_."

"I'll kill you," I warned him. "I swear I'll kill you, Monroe. Where are
they from--Russia, China, Argentina?"

He grimaced. "What's so secret about those places? Go on!--guess again."

I stared at him long and hard. "The only place else--"

"Sure," he said. "You got it, Colonel. The other dome is