The speculative bank murmured, "I wonder if there would be any danger. How hot is that exhaust?" Calculations were rapidly made and the answer arrived at. The Rell prudently decided to remain where they were for the present. * * * * * Captain Leonard Brown, USAF, hunched over the instruments in the cramped control cabin which, being the only available space in the ship, doubled as living quarters. A larger man would have found the arrangement impossible. Brown, being 5' 2" and weighing 105 pounds found it merely intolerable. At the moment he was temporarily able to forget his discomfort, however. The many tiny dials and indicators told a story all their own to Brown's trained vision. "Just another half hour," he whispered to himself. "Just thirty more minutes and I'll land. It may be just a dead planet but I'll still be the first." There really wasn't a great deal for Brown to do. The ship was self-guided. The Air Force had trusted robot mechanisms more than human reactions. Thus Brown's entire active contribution to the flight consisted in watching the dials (which recorded everything so even watching them was unnecessary) and in pressing the button which would cause the ship to start its return journey. Of course the scientists could have constructed another mechanism to press the button and made it a completely robot ship. But despite their frailties and imperfections, human beings have certain advantages. Humans can talk. Machines may see and detect far more than their human creators but all they can do is record. They can neither interpret nor satisfactorily describe. Brown was present not only to report a human's reactions to the first Mars flight; he was also along to see that which the machines might miss. "We've never satisfactorily defined life," one of his instructors had told Brown shortly after he started the three grueling years of training which had been necessary, "so we can't very well build a foolproof machine for detecting it. That's why we've left room for 105 pounds of dead weight." "Meaning me?" "Meaning you." "And I'm your foolproof machine for detecting life?" "Let's say you're the closest we can come to it at present. We're banking everything on this first trip. It'll be at least eighteen months later before we can get a second ship into space. So it's up to you to get everything you can ... some evidence of life, preferably animal, if possible. With public support it'll be a hell of a lot easier squeezing appropriations out of Congress for the next ship and to get public support we need the biggest possible play in the newspapers. If anything is newsworthy on Mars it should be evidence of life ... even plant life." So here he was, 105 pounds of concentrated knowledge and anticipation, itching with the desire for action and also from more basic causes having to do with two months confinement in a small space with a minimum of water.