As he watched teardrop cars whip along Phoenix, Arizona’s, double-decked streets, elevated over one another to avoid dangerous intersections and delaying stop lights, he thought back over the years; to the 1950’s, when mice and monkeys were sent up in Vikings to launch mankind’s first probing of the mysterious space beyond Earth, and the first satellites were launched; to the 1960’s, when huger, multiple-stage rockets finally conquered the problem of escape velocity; to 1975—today—when man was finally ready to send one of his own kind into the uninhabited deeps. Marsh climbed back into bed, but sleep would not come. In the adjoining room, he could hear the footsteps of mother and father. By their sound he knew they were the footsteps of worried people. This hurt Marsh more than his own uneasiness. The anxiety had begun for them, he knew, when he had first signed up for space-cadet training. They had known there was an extremely high percentage of washouts, and after each test he passed, they had pretended to be glad. But Marsh knew that inwardly they had hoped he would fail, for they were aware of the ultimate goal that the space scientists were working for—the goal that had just now been reached. Marsh finally fell into a troubled sleep that lasted until morning. He woke early, before the alarm rang. He got up, showered, pulled on his blue-corded cadet uniform, and tugged on the polished gray boots. He took one final look around his room as though in farewell, then went out to the kitchen. His folks were up ahead of time too, trying to act as though it were just another day. Dad was pretending to enjoy his morning paper, nodding only casually to Marsh as he came in. Mom was stirring scrambled eggs in the skillet, but she wasn’t a very good actor, Marsh noticed, for she furtively wiped her eyes with her free hand. The eggs were cooked too hard and the toast had to be scraped, but no one seemed to care. The three of them sat down at the table, still speaking in monosyllables and of unimportant things. They made a pretense of eating. “Well, Mom,” Dad suddenly said with a forced jollity that was intended to break the tension, “the Farnsworth family has finally got a celebrity in it.” “I don’t see why they don’t send an older man!” Mom burst out, as though she had been holding it in as long as she could. “Sending a boy who isn’t even twenty-two—” “Things are different nowadays, Mom,” Dad explained, still with the assumed calmness that masked his real feelings. “These days, men grow up faster and mature quicker. They’re stronger and more alert than older men—” His voice trailed off as if he were unable to convince himself. “_Some_body has to go,” Marsh said. “Why not a younger man without family and responsibility? That’s why they’re giving younger men more opportunities today than they used to.” “It’s not younger men I’m talking about!” Mom blurted. “It’s you, Marsh!”