There were expressions of national sorrow over the unexplained loss of the two astronauts, but plans were renewed for the next voyage. The President said that sacrifices must be expected if this great goal were to be achieved, and that it would be a betrayal of those who had already given their lives if the work were to stop now. In Canada that winter, Jim was sure the wolves howled on cold, moonlit nights more than ever before. And something new was happening to the moon. The silver light was taking on a faint tint of orange. The radio told of a very learned report by some astronomer who spoke obscurely of changes in albedo and percentages of atmospheric dust and angstroms of sunlight. Any fool could see the moon was changing color. Jim listened to the wolves howling in the forest, and he thought of Cramer's Pond when he was a boy, and of a machine tumbling into a crevasse where a terrible darkness lay, and he wondered how long it would be. THE END