Jim smiled in the darkness. Mary was as eager as he was for the success of the flight. And she didn't have his fear of failure, that kept him from wanting to know the maybe-yes, maybe-no indications that the telemetry would first show. "Sure," he said, "that's a good place to watch it." The moon. * * * * * They watched its reflection thrashing on the water as the breakers rolled across, under, and around it. It was the same image that men had watched and wondered about and feared--for a half million years. The first creatures that had any semblance of manhood had sat on their haunches on this same shore and watched the same moon and the same water. And felt the same fears, Jim thought. He didn't know whether it was fear or not, but there was some sense of awesome mystery that filled him when he looked at the moon. It had been that way all his life. He remembered how it was when he was a boy and he walked through the fields at night on his way home. He had to pass Cramer's Pond, and when the moon was up its light from the sky and its reflection from the pond seemed to fill the whole earth with a cold, silver light. He always hurried past the pond on such nights. Mary felt it, too. "I wonder why the moon makes people feel the way they do." "How does it make people feel?" "Oh, kind of--kind of--_you_ know!" Jim laughed aloud. This was a typical Mary Cochran explanation. But it told him all he needed to know. What she said was quite true. He _did_ know. The baying of dogs on a wintery, moonlit night. The madness called lunacy. Seeds must be planted just so, in relation to the moon, or the crop will fail. Men had always felt strange things about the moon. Would a Saturn missile and a mechanical monster in its nose be able to destroy all that? Jim started the car. "Let's get back. I've _got_ to know how the flight's going!" * * * * * They were still in the blockhouse, but the tension was relaxed. They were talking and watching the meters and cathode ray tubes without the strain and fear of failure. Jim knew the answer even before Sam and Allan walked up to him and slapped him on the back. "Where the devil did you go?" said Sam. "I thought you were going to be right behind me when we fired, and you weren't here at all!" "It's like your first baby, you want to be there, and you don't. Was it a good shot?" "Was it a good shot?" Allan's face became ecstatic. "We've never had a better one. On course all the way!" The Project Director, Emil Hennesey was behind them. His face was bleak. "I expected you to be here for the firing, Cochran," he said. "It seems to display little interest in your end of the project that you didn't feel it necessary to show up."