"There is security and security, Allerton. It can't be explained to a man. He's got to find out for himself. Alone in space, with the ship and a frontier vaster than all the frontiers before it in history, a certain type of man can be secure. He's the man who's lost in a crowd. Confused and muddled by convention, he's not a hero. Basically, he's a lonesome man. Strangely, the psychologists tell you he's happy then--when he's lonesome. You see what I mean, Allerton?" "No, sir. Not entirely." "Forget that formal stuff. Well, you'll learn. The important thing is this: there aren't enough real spacemen to go around. A normal man doesn't give up life for dedication. A spaceman does. You belong to a strange breed, Allerton. Want to talk about your vacation?" "Absolutely not," Allerton said curtly, then apologized. The thought of it, the thought of stepping off the _Eros_ again and feeling the ground of Earth underfoot, wet ground sometimes, or dry and dusty, or covered with a white mantle of snow, always unpredictable, was distasteful. "You're one of the breed now," the Captain repeated. * * * * * "You may close the Allerton file," said the government psychologist to his secretary. "It's finished?" "We paid his wife a visit yesterday. They're the hardest ones to deal with. The man never knows, but the woman does. How can you convince a woman her husband will be happiest away from her--how can you convince her when you're not even sure yourself?" "I feel sorry for Allerton. You can't help feeling sorry for him." "But psychological tests indicate he'll be happier this way. Besides--" "--besides," the secretary finished for him, "it's for the good of the nation. But never mind those psychological tests. Don't have to tell _me_ which came first, the chicken or the egg." "Have it your way. But Mrs. Allerton understood." "After we worked on her night and day for three years!" "Nevertheless, she understood. Allerton is a special breed, a spaceman. Well, isn't he?" "And Mrs. Allerton playing along with us like that, pretending she had re-married--" "It was the best way. She knew that." "We convinced her of that. But forget it, chief. I'd rather not talk about it. Still, Allerton wasn't a born spaceman, and you know it. There's no such thing, except for extreme introverts, who aren't such good workers, anyway." "We need spacemen. We need dedicated men who don't want to see their native planet. Either we control space or our enemy does." "Then why don't you say it that way?" "Well, because--" "Because you're afraid to admit it even to yourself, that's why. Spacemen aren't born, chief. They are made. They are not particularly heroic or well-adjusted people. They are ordinary men with induced traumas and they don't want to go near Earth again, and we call them spacemen." "It's for the security of the nation," said the government psychologist as he opened a new file....