"And, Colonel," I went on, "we're not untrained. Bud Dorsey, to your right, is an astrophysicist who worked with the Agassiz Observatory team in mapping the interstellar anti-matter dust clouds. Dr. Keto Hannamuri is a pediatrician. Dorothy Damien, our Firebird, is a dietitian. Fizz Ewell is a nuclear engineer. Karl Fyrmeister's degree is in chem engineering, as is Janie Bohrman's. Gloria Moss is working on her doctorate in sociology. Her thesis, Colonel, deals with the social dynamics of small human groups such as ours. Alfred MacCoy, standing behind you, has written three symphonies and an oratorio so far; and R.C.A. Victor has threaded them all with the New York Philharmonic. Lucy Cashdollar has had her works of sculpture displayed in the National Gallery and at London's Tate. There are some few resources here, Colonel." "I didn't intend to belittle your intellectual accomplishments, Dr. Bogardus," the Colonel said. "I've read your dossiers. They're impressive. When I called you untrained, what I really meant was that you're totally unskilled in terms of my own specialty. I meant that none of you knows anything of the skills of simple chemical rocketry, much less the techniques required to lift half a million tons on a nuclear-pulse thrust." "We can learn," I said. "I hope so," Colonel Barrett said, "because I've been ordered to teach you." * * * * * "We're in?" Bud Dorsey demanded. "You're in," Colonel Barrett said. "The decision in the Pentagon went against my recommendation that professionals in rocketry be recruited for the Alpha Centauri flight. The generals liked your argument, Dr. Bogardus, that we should send a germ-free ship and a germ-free crew to a possibly germ-free planet. In a sense, this is tradition. Back in the '50s, moon-missiles were sponged down with Lysol before launching, just in case they got where they were aimed at. Our people didn't want to contaminate the moon's surface with earthly micro-organisms, cluttering up the picture for the bacteriologists who were scheduled to arrive later. The Chief of Staff said that if there is a germ-free population on one of the Centaurus planets, we must not initiate our contact with them by handing out the sort of prizes Cook's crew brought to the South Seas--measles, tuberculosis, smallpox. We can't know that even innocuous bacteria might not be fatal to a gnotobiotic, alien population. So you go." "Colonel," I said, "I'm sure that Washington didn't give up the _Zeta_ to us out of sheer altruism. What's their real reason?" "Where else could we get a crew of twenty-eight men and women who've given proof they can live together for a long period of time, peaceably, retaining a fair degree of sanity? Miss Moss's studies in group dynamics were most interesting to the Chief of Staff. Doubtless they did much to influence his decision in your favor." "There's one thing I don't understand, Colonel Barrett." "What's that, Miss Damien?" he asked.