It started: "Dear Joel: This isn't going to be a nice letter, but I thought it best that you should know before you came home." There was more to it, but he hadn't even needed to read it to know what it said. It wasn't original, of course. Women who change their minds weren't exactly an innovation, either. He crumpled the paper and held a match to it and watched it burn on the steel floor. Three years had been a long time. It was too long a time to keep loving a man who was a quarter of a million miles away. She could look up in the night sky when she was out with somebody else now and tell him how she had once been engaged to the Man in the Moon. It would make good conversation. It would be funny. A joke. He got up and walked over to his phonograph and put the record on. The somewhat scratchy voice sang as if nothing had happened Way Back Home by Al Lewis. The record caught and started repeating the last line. He hadn't actually wanted to play it. It had been an automatic response. He had played it lots of times before when he had thought of Earth. Of going home. He crossed over and threw the record across the bunker and watched it shatter on the steel wall and the pieces fall to the floor. The others came back in the bunker and the men of the Second started grabbing their bags and few belongings and getting ready to leave. Dahl sat in a corner, a peculiar expression on his face. He looked as if he wanted to cry and yet still felt that the occasion was one for rejoicing. Chapman walked over to him. "Get your stuff and leave with the others, Dahl." His voice was quiet and hard. Dahl looked up, opened his mouth to say something, and then shut up. Donley and Bening and Dowden were already in the airlock, ready to leave. Klein caught the conversation and came over. He gripped Chapman's arm. "What the hell's going on, Chap? Get your bag and let's go. I know just the bistro to throw a whing-ding when we get--" "I'm not going back," Chapman said. Klein looked annoyed, not believing him. "Come on, what's the matter with you? You suddenly decide you don't like the blue sky and trees and stuff? Let's go!" The men in the lock were looking at them questioningly. Some members of the Third looked embarrassed, like outsiders caught in a family argument. "Look, Julius, I'm not going back," Chapman repeated dully. "I haven't anything to go back for." "You're doing a much braver thing than you may think," a voice cut in. It belonged to Eberlein. Chapman looked at him. Eberlein flushed, then turned and walked-stiffly to the lock to join the others. Just before the inner door of the lock shut, they could hear Chapman, his hands on his hips, breaking in the Third on how to be happy and stay healthy on the Moon. His voice was ragged and strained and sounded like a top-sergeant's. * * * * *