straps that held him. Babs was a good secretary. She was the only one
Cochrane had ever had who did not try to make use of her position as
secretary to the producer of the Dikkipatti Hour on television. Other
secretaries had used their nearness to him to wangle acting or dancing
or singing assignments on other and lesser shows. As a rule they lasted
just four public appearances before they were back at desks, spoiled for
further secretarial use by their taste of fame. But Babs hadn't tried
that. Yet she'd jumped at a chance for a trip to the moon.

A panel up toward the nose of the rocket--the upper end of this
passenger compartment--glowed suddenly. Flaming red letters said,
"_Take-off, ninety seconds._"

Cochrane found an ironic flavor in the thought that splendid daring and
incredible technology had made his coming journey possible. Heroes had
ventured magnificently into the emptiness beyond Earth's atmosphere.
Uncountable millions of dollars had been spent. Enormous intelligence
and infinite pains had been devoted to making possible a journey of two
hundred thirty-six thousand miles through sheer nothingness. This was
the most splendid achievement of human science--the reaching of a
satellite of Earth and the building of a human city there.

And for what? Undoubtedly so that one Jed Cochrane could be ordered by
telephone, by somebody's secretary, to go and get on a passenger-rocket
and get to the moon. Go--having failed to make a protest because his
boss wouldn't interrupt dinner to listen--so he could keep his job by
obeying. For this splendid purpose, scientists had labored and dedicated
men had risked their lives.

Of course, Cochrane reminded himself with conscious justice, of course