Six months of brain-beating in his own home finally did for him what thirteen years of formal schooling had not done; it taught him _how_ to study, and it taught him _why_ to study. At the end of that time, he was accepted by a lesser engineering school in the northeastern United States, and this time he did it right. In this second school, however, he was known as the boy who'd flunked out of MIT. It was much the same as his reputation for non-crying in childhood. He hadn't really wanted, then, to be known as the boy who wouldn't cry--all he'd really wanted was for people not to try to make him cry. But he hadn't known how to manage that, and so he'd built up a brittle sort of bravado, a challenging attitude that was actually only the other side of the crying coin. The bravado was still his only defense when he was known as the boy who'd flunked out of MIT. His whole attitude seemed to say, "So what? I'm still a smarter better engineer than all the rest of you clods combined, and that goes for you fourth-rate teachers, too." As a result, he had plenty of time for studying. No one at school was particularly anxious for his company. The funny part of it was that he was right. As a child, the other kids _couldn't_ make him cry. As an engineering student, he _was_ better than anyone else in his class. After two semesters, with a string of 'A' marks to his credit, he re-applied at MIT and was accepted on a probationary basis. He graduated seventh in his class--held back only by his poor freshman marks--and was immediately snapped up by Interplanetal Business Machines. Interplanetal ran him through the normal engineer trainee courses, familiarizing him with the company's line of equipment. He sailed through, fascinated by this actual concrete usage of what had been only theoretical knowledge at school, and since he finished first in his class he was given his choice of geographical area of assignment. By now, bravado was an ingrained characteristic of Harvey Ricks. Interplanetal maintained a Moon Division, which built computers and office equipment for lease to the other Moon industries, and all personnel there were volunteers on a two-year contract. It was inevitable that Harvey Ricks would volunteer. * * * * * Throughout his life, bravado had made him do what he could but didn't want to do. He _could_ hold the tears back, though he didn't want to have to, and his attitude had forced him to prove it, time and time again. He _could_ buckle down and study, though he'd have preferred to loaf, and his own challenge to his classmates had forced him to do it. He _could_ spend two years on the Moon, though he would much rather have lived that time in New York or San Jose, and so here he was on his way to the Moon.