But during the first of our now infrequent meetings, he said to Craig and Klein and me: "When I go out to Mars, I'd like to keep my old bunch as crew. I need men I'm used to working with, those who understand the problems we're up against. I have a plan that makes sense. The trouble is, to join this expedition, a man has to be part damn-fool." Klein chuckled. "I'll sell you some of mine." I just nodded my way in. I'd never thought of backing out. Craig grabbed Miller's hand and shook it. Miller gave Etl a chance to say no. "You can stay on Earth if you want to, Etl." But the creature said: "I have lived all my life with the idea of going, Miller. Thank you." * * * * * Miller briefed us about his plan. Then he, Klein, Craig and I all took a lot of psych tests--trick questioning and so forth to reveal defects of conviction and control. But we were all pretty well indoctrinated and steady. Etl had taken so many tests already that, if there were any flaws still hidden in him, they would probably never be found. Mars and Earth were approaching closer to each other again in their orbital positions. A month before takeoff time, Craig, Klein and I took Etl, in a small air-conditioned cage, to White Sands. The ship towered there, silvery, already completed. We knew its structure and the function of its machinery intimately from study of its blueprints. But our acquaintance with it had to be actual, too. So we went over it again and again, under Miller's tutelage. Miller wrote a last message, to be handed to the newscast boys after our departure: "_If by Martian action, we fail to return, don't blame the Martians too quickly, because there is a difference and a doubt. Contact between worlds is worth more than the poison of a grudge...._" I said good-by to Alice and the kids, who had come out to see me off. I felt pretty punk. Maybe I was a stinker, going off like that. But, on the other hand, that wasn't entirely the right way to look at things, because Patty's and Ron's faces fairly glowed with pride for their pa. The tough part, then, was for Alice, who knew what it was all about. Yet she looked proud, too. And she didn't go damp. "If it weren't for the kids, I'd be trying to go along, Louie," she told me. "Take care of yourself." She knew that a guy has to do what's in his heart. I think that the basic and initial motive of exploration is that richest of human commodities--high romance. The metallic ores and other commercial stuff that get involved later are only cheap by-products. To make the dream of space travel a reality was one of our purposes. But to try to forestall the danger behind it was at least as important. * * * * *