Doc was the first to tag Moran with the adjective we all, eventually, accepted. "It's the damnedest thing," he told me, "I've ever seen. Brait, I'll swear on a pile of prescriptions that he didn't have one chance in a million of pulling through. But he's still alive! "By rights, he should have been dead two weeks before we found him. Do you know he was on that asteroid five solid weeks? Without food. With only one container of water. With the oxygen reserve in his tank practically exhausted! "And his condition--" Jurnegan shook his head uncomprehendingly. "Deplorable! He was dessicated, undernourished, fouled from weeks in a bulger. Acute cyanosis alone should have killed him. But--" I said, "The will-to-live, Doc. It's the determining factor in many a borderline case. I've heard of men with holes in their heads you could drive a stratoplane through who simply refused to--" "That's just it," said Jurnegan. "He _wants_ to die! He refused to take food. I had to feed him intravenously and force him to drink. But in spite of his physical and mental condition, he still lives. It--it's mysterious, Brait!" So I went in to visit our strange passenger. He wasn't a bad looking chap, now that his whiskers had been plowed. Thin, of course; hollow of cheek and eye. His skin was sallow, faintly olive; the contours of his head long and narrow, short-indexed. He was a typical Mediterannean, if what my profs taught me is right. Medium stature, small-boned, thin, tapering fingers. Crisp, oily hair, black as space. I said, "Well, you look like a new man!"--which he did, and, "You're looking fine!" I said--which he wasn't. He turned his head slowly, studied me with grave, questioning eyes. His voice was faint, but low and pleasing. "You are Mr. Brait, the Second Mate? I believe I have you to thank for having rescued me?" "That's all right," I told him. "Why," he interrupted gently, "did you do it?" I said, "Oh, come now! You've got to perk up! You get a little flesh on your bones and you'll feel better." But he went on, as though not hearing my words, "It was a chance. The best chance I've had for years--a thousand years--and you took it from me. Out there I might have found peace at last. The power cannot--it _must_ not--extend into the depths of space." * * * * * His voice had risen; there was a light of madness, of strange, savage intensity in his eyes. I felt the little hairs on the back of my neck pringling. I knew, now, that the man had not come unscathed through his experience. He was space crazy. Wildly, desperately so. I said, in what I hoped was a soothing voice, "Now, take it easy, Mr.--er--Moran, isn't it?" The ghost of a smile touched his lips, and his body became less tense. He said wearily, "Moran--yes. Or Ader. Or Cart--Oh, anything you choose. It hardly seems important any more. I've had so many, many names."