“What happened?” Jerry breathed, his heart pounding. His father pointed behind them. “Look.” Jerry turned and saw the edge of a treacherous ditch running right across the roadway where they would have passed over. The gorge was several feet wide. “I didn’t even see it,” Jerry murmured, sick with fear at what might have happened. This wasn’t the first time he’d been shaken on this journey. It made him wonder as he had once before if he had what it took to be a space man, or if this adventure would make him decide never to leave the atmosphere of Earth again. “Scared?” his father asked. Jerry nodded. “Don’t worry. I was too for a moment.” “You were?” Jerry asked with surprise. “Fear was given to man, so he could save himself from danger, Jerry,” Capt. Welsh said. “Don’t be ashamed of it. Fear is nothing to be ashamed of unless you let it get the best of you. Never forget that.” They arrived at their first delivery point, an engineering project on a plateau surrounded by mountains. There were the foundations of great buildings to come, constructed of hard Lunar granite. The space-suited figures came running when they recognized Capt. Welsh and his mail car. Jerry marveled how the formerly stern expressions of the workmen brightened when the foreman handed mail out to them. “It must be fun bringing mail to men who are so far from their homes and families,” Jerry said when they were on their way again. “I guess that’s why I’ve put up with the lonely hours of seeing nothing but stardust for the past ten years,” Capt. Welsh answered. “But I love it, Son, and I wouldn’t trade jobs with any man.” Their next delivery site was a cavern where men were prospecting for uranium. They too were overjoyed at receiving messages from home. The jeep rolled on from there to a huge plain which was being prepared for a future spaceport. Capt. Welsh and his helper dropped off another mail sack and then were on their way again. Some hours later, all but two deliveries had been made. “Next stop is the astronomy observatory,” Capt. Welsh told Jerry. They crawled over sandy hills that taxed the gripping power of their spiked wheels, wound in and out of towering buttresses of black basalt, and bored through natural tunnels like a pair of human moles. Then the observatory came into view. A smiling little scientist with thick glasses signed for the mail at the door. He invited Jerry to come back and visit the place before he returned to Earth. “You haven’t seen anything until you look through their great telescope,” Capt. Welsh told Jerry as they drove off. “What’s our last stop?” Jerry wanted to know. “A geology camp where some scientists are digging into ancient rocks,” his father said. “It’s only about seven miles away, but the going will be a little rough before we get there. It’s a good thing it’s our last stop because we don’t have any too much oxygen left in our shoulder tanks. I usually don’t take this long on a mail run.”