He spent the morning acquiring belief in the ion drive. He made a point of not thinking ahead. But as the drive shut out, and the great wheel, shorn of all velocity, slid onto the Zeroville coasting track, he had no alternative. Eleven-fifteen. TOA Moon Dome announced for seven-thirty. Eight hours, fifteen minutes. Lunch, of course. Then what? There’d be nothing doing in crew quarters, once the shuttles left-- _Sonofabitch!_ He wouldn’t be on the wheel; he’d be in the shuttle. In Shuttle Two: out like a light. With all the other squares. All passengers made the shuttle-leg under sedation. _All passengers_.... The speaker overhead came to life: “All passengers please board your shuttles. Prepare for sedation.” Johnny found Basil, and thanked him. “Nice of you to let me hang around so much,” he said. “I’d have flipped my top sitting it out with the damn riders the whole way.” “Pleasure, Johnny. I mean it. Hell, it was good to see you again. I don’t want to stick my nose where it ain’t wanted, but--like man, if you’re gonna be around again--oh, crap, you know what I mean.” “Thanks, Bass. Tell you the truth, I don’t know yet myself. But you got no one to blame but yourself if they kick you out and give _me_ your job. Hell--I felt so much like crew this trip, I forgot all about the shuttle-leg, till they hollered just now.” The announcer barked again, and started “Last call.” Johnny took off down the shaft. He had it _made_! _Red Dome--3:50_ A.M. (_S.S.T._) (_2:30_ P.M. _C.S.T._) “... helicopter sighted at base of hill 29.3 kilometres N. 17° E. from Playfair Crater. Flight reconnaissance fully establishes identity of vehicle. No indication of presence of pilot, M. Harounian. No superficial evidence of forced landing. Ground search to be conducted pending permission from U.S.A.A. authorities to conduct same within 50-kilometre zone.” Dr. Chen tapped the stiff paper of the official report thoughtfully on his desk. Then he switched on the phone, and asked for the S.U.A.R. hostel at World Dome. That seemed probably the best way to go about it. Besides which, Dr. Christensen was not at Dollars Dome, and no second-in-command would want to take responsibility for such a decision. _Dollars Dome--4:30_ P.M. (_C.S.T._) Phil Kutler sat at his desk, with a dozen sheets of rapidly typed pages spread out in front of him. He picked up one, glanced at it, put it down, picked up another. He shook his head, marveling or disbelieving, or just dazed: he wasn’t sure which. On each page, he had collected what seemed to be associated bits from the two tapes. Now he began stacking sheets, sorting them into two piles. In one were the “weirdies”: what they _seemed_ to mean was not even worth thinking about yet, he told himself firmly. The other stack held more coherent and familiar bits which, however, seemed probable “normal” thought ramblings. He picked up the next page: