After a while, he saw that the Moon was gradually increasing in size. The rocket nose was definitely approaching the Lunar sphere. Because the Earth no longer swung into view, Robin also realized that the rocket nose must have reversed itself, must be heading moonward, must be falling to the Moon! It would fall faster and faster now, as its trip through space was ending. It was held in the grip of a new world and would speed to its final destruction like a meteoric bullet. It would be another meteor blasting into the surface to flash instantly into powder! _6. Target: Luna_ Now that Robin recognized the certainty that he would never return, that he was a doomed man, a curious sort of change came over him. Up to this time, he had been carefully suppressing his inner thoughts, comforting himself with the hope that the trip would somehow end up safely. Yet while his mind was dwelling on that thought to the exclusion of others, his nerves had been under tension. He had felt himself continually on the edge of breakdown, in proximity to screaming. But Robin had been trained well. His life had never been a particularly easy one and the crying had almost certainly got out of his system during the days when as a little boy he had wandered through a war-torn land hungry and homeless. Life in an orphanage, at best, lacks much of the careful comforts of parents' hands, and those who had come out of such upbringing learn strong self-control early, learn to hold their jumping nerves in check at moments of tension and crisis. Now that the conscious realization that a crash into the Moon was inevitable had forced itself into acceptance, Robin felt a slipping away of this tension. The die had been cast, the doubt had been removed. He actually felt an easing of his mind, felt himself able to take cooler estimate of his situation. He curled himself up in his narrow, closetlike space as comfortably as possible and thought the matter over. He was hungry again and still thirsty and this time he ate the second candy bar without saving any. At the rate of speed he was traveling, it could not be many hours more before he flashed to a sudden, fiery, meteoric death. He turned that thought over in his mind, while he drank some more water. A meteoric end, he thought, to flash like a blazing firebolt, to crash with the violence of an explosion against the dry, dusty surface of the Moon. It might have been spectacular to observe, but he would never know. He wondered if it would be seen from the Earth.