But that was what they were for. Hagen enjoyed that feeling, although he would have scoffed at any man who accused Steve of harboring a desire to serve mankind. All Steve cared about was the fact that it was far better to hale a crew of Guardians out of bed and hurl them across space to protect their fellow men than to lose men and material unnoticed. And Steve knew, too, that blowups were 'headline stuff' and no indictment of space travel. For every alarm that came whispering its troubles across the galaxy, a hundred-thousand people traversed the spacelanes from star to star without mishap. He often wondered how long he would be in this business before he began to shake his head at the chances mankind took. Or whether this sort of bias would take place in him. Certainly, a man living where the dangers are pointed out while the safeties are not noticed should begin to place too much importance on the obvious. But so far Steve had none of this; he plodded on his job and did it as well as he could, knowing that as soon as he finished this phase of his activities as a Guardian, he would have more interesting work. This expectation dispelled the routine drabness of being an inspector; his off-duty hours were too happily filled for him to do more than consider the future. For Steve could not contemplate the future without thinking of Lois Morehouse. She was interested in him, he knew. And like any man of intellect, Steve was used to thinking of any desirable woman in the light of a possible mate and judging her values and virtues accordingly. But until he knew more about her, Steve could formulate nothing more than the fact that she was desirable; the big thing was to discover whether it could last beyond the first stages. Steve had known too many girls with a Perfect Thirty-Six--with an I.Q. to match--to place much judgement upon outward appearances. So, before Steve took on the job of meeting her every morning across the breakfast table, Steve wanted to know more about her. He guessed--rightly--that Lois wanted to find out more about him. He gave her every chance, starting with the evening of the dance. 4 He had little time. The routine of his inspection tours took Steve farther away from Base One as time went on, and Hagen had small chance to do other than run in and out. His spare time was his, of course; Steve was not on twenty-four hour duty. He could have his way in one of two possibilities; he could either stay near the base of operations or he could spend the spare time in space-flight to and from Base One. He did the latter until the running time versus the visiting time ran smack into the Law of Diminishing Returns, at which point he loafed his spare time away on a planet near to his course across the galactic sector. At these times Hagen calmly awaited the future, when he could be back at the Base.