ercom once more. "Dr. Ashby, Mr. Jorden is still waiting to see
you."

Jorden. He had forgotten. The man had been waiting during his conference
with the Commissioners. Jorden was the one who had been rejected for
examination two weeks ago and insisted he had a _right_ to be examined
for colonization factors. He had been trying to get in ever since. He
might as well get rid of the man once and for all, Ashby decided
reluctantly.

"Show him in," he said.

Mark Jorden was a tall, blond man in his late twenties. Shaking hands
with him, Ashby felt thick, strong fingers and glimpsed a massive wrist
at the edge of the coat sleeve. Jorden's face was a pleasant
Scandinavian pink, matched by blue eyes that looked intently into
Ashby's face.

They sat at the desk. "You want to be a colonist," said Ashby. "You say
you want to settle forty seven light years from Earth for the rest of
your life. And our preliminary psycho tests indicate you have scarcely a
vestige of the basic qualities required. Why do you insist on the full
examination?"

Jorden smiled and shook his head honestly. "I don't know exactly. It
seems like something I'd enjoy doing. Maybe it's in my people--they
liked to move around and see new places. They were seamen in the days
when there weren't any charts to sail by."

"It's certain that this is a situation without charts to sail by," said
Ashby, "but I hardly think the word 'enjoy' is applicable. Have you
thought at all of what existence means at that distance from Earth, with
no communication whatever except a ship every eight years or so?
Qualifications just a trifle short of insanity are required for a
venture of that kind."

"I'm sure you don't mean that, Dr. Ashby," said Jorden reprovingly.

"Perhaps not," said Ashby. His visitor's calm assurance irritated him,
as if _he_ were the one who knew what a colonist ought to be. "I see by
your application you're an electrical engineer."

Jorden nodded. "Yes. My company has just offered me the head of the
department, but I had to explain I was putting in an application for
colonist. They think I'm crazy, of course."

"Does taking the examination mean giving up your promotion?"

"I'm not sure. But I rather think they will pass me up and give it to
one of the other men."

"You want to go badly enough to risk giving up that chance in order to
take an examination which will unquestionably show you have no
qualifications whatever to be a colonist?"

"I th