I'd have been a lot more bitter if I had known what was in store for me at the Cape. COMCORP flew me down in one of our private prop-jets, with only Paul Cleary for company. He introduced me to the brass, and we sat through a couple conferences while the idea was spelled out to a group of sure-enough spacemen. Then they turned that mob loose on me. I was emotionally unprepared. First off, Cleary and Fred had been building me up all through the three months, and I had actually gotten to the point where I thought I knew what I was doing. These space-jockeys spent most of their time deflating my ego. My tormentor-in-chief was a wise punk from Brooklyn named Sid Stein. "How have you made out in your centrifuge tests?" he asked me at breakfast the first morning after I had reached the Cape. "I have never done any of that stuff, Mr. Stein," I said. "Well, how many gees can you pull?" I shrugged. "Same as you, I suppose. How many is that?" "Brot_her_!" The space medic wasn't any better. The mission chief insisted that it wasn't safe to put anybody in a satellite who couldn't pass the physical. I guess you know that about one man in a thousand can qualify. This was supposed to wash me out. "Remarkable shape." The space medic kept saying. "You must take considerable exercise, doctor." "Oh, no," I said. "Just jog a mile or so before breakfast. Nothing spectacular." "No other formal activity?" "Well," I snarled, "just swimming, fencing and weight lifting. I've given up the boxing and handball." "Kept in excellent shape, nevertheless," he said. "You'll be a disappointment to them." "Look," Stein said to me after a week of tests and countertests. "Don't be deceived by these tests. All they show is that your heart is still beating. The big thing is emotional. Doc, I think you should reconsider this idea of flopping around out there in the void. We've got experienced men here, and none of them is ready to try it." "Fools rush in, eh, Mr. Stein." "Precisely." In the meantime I got a daily phone call from Paul Cleary. That I could have snarled off, but Sylvia always came on the line first, and there was a minute or so of chit-chat before she cut her boss in on the line. I'm sure she listened to all the calls. But her first words were deadly. For example: "Mike! Hi, Mike. Mr. Cleary wants to see how you're doing." "Good. Put him on." "In a minute. I think it's so wonderful you passed the final physical, Mike. You're really so deceptive. I never had imagined you had such a steely physique." "Clean living," I said. "No girls." "There'd better not be!" "Don't worry. How could I get to see any girls down here? Every time I look away from my work all I can see is Bikini swim suits." "Cut that out!" she snickered, and put Cleary on the line. * * * * * There came a final day when the mission chief called me in to his office.