several hours later he was again in general banning's office.

"look," banning said, "i'm sorry to press this, and i know you took a hell of a beating in there. but we've got to know."

colin nodded morosely. "i know. i'm sorry about the delay."

"you looked more dead than alive when you came out."

"i'm afraid i'm too long on empathy and too short on objectivity to fool with that kind of thing. one of the reasons i don't often trigger these big discharges in my own practice. i get—inside, i guess, somehow. no detachment, or not enough."

"what was there? inside, if that's the way you want to put it."

colin sighed, absently pulled his pipe from his jacket pocket. "specifically, i don't think i can tell you. he saw—or experienced as seeing—something when he went into the skip. it was something so damned big it stripped him of his orientation as a human being."

"the films show him assuming a foetal position. that what you mean?"

"well—basically this kind of regression is a denial of responsibility. 'i'm not a man,' he says. 'i'm just an unborn child. take care of me.' the individual wants no part of the problems and responsibilities of adulthood. harkins came out of that, or he never could have got the ship back. but he couldn't face being a man. the only way he could carry out his responsibilities, and survive, was to abolish the category, man."

colin leaned back and sighed. "you know," he said thoughtfully, "harkins must be the loneliest human being that ever lived. god!"

after a moment he looked up. "ever read any emerson?"

"the philosopher emerson? no, not much. some maybe, when i was in college. why?"

"nothing in particular. i was just thinking of an essay of his on nature."

"no, haven't read it. well," he continued, standing, "where do we go from here?"

"more of the same, i'm afraid. we have to find out what he saw. what was so—immense, that it could make a man deny the existence of other men."

night came to gila base iv; the second night after the phoenix i's landing. darkness climbed out of the eastern hills and spread itself upward into the sky and across the plane of the desert. phoenix i was still on the landing pad, but its sides were hidden by a webwork of gantries and scaffolding as base technicians clambered over it, testing, checking, examining.

colin insisted on leaving the base, making the twenty-mile drive into town and his home. banning was too tired to argue about it. he gave the psychiatrist a security gate-pass and went to bed in his own office.

colin's car buzzed down the wide concrete toward the little cluster of lights that marked gila city. he slowed when he reached the outskirts, watching the blue glare of the overhead sodium lamps slide along the hood and up over the windshield.

reaching his apartment, he flicked on the lights and went in. it was a single room, two walls covered with floor-to-ceiling bookcases; there was a desk, one overstuffed chair. automatically his eyes swept the room with the questioning glance of a man returning home; they lingered apprehensively on the neat stack of unopened mail the cleaning woman had put on the exact corner of the desk. he sighed. no matter how preoccupied a man got, the rest of the world went on just the same.

he went into the little kitchenette and made himself a cup of instant coffee, returned to the main room stirring it absently. he seated himself heavily in the overstuffed chair.

struck by a sudden thought, he put the coffee down on the edge of his desk and went over to one book-wall. he scanned the multi-colored spines until he found the thin paperback he was looking for. he took it down and went back to the chair. "nature," the cover said, "by ralph waldo emerson."

laying the little pamphlet open in his lap, he pulled pipe and tobacco out of his jacket pocket, tamped the bowl full and lit it. he shifted himself easily in the chair, settling himself.

our age is retrospective, the introduction began. it builds the sepulchers of the fathers....

he read on, gliding over the familiar words with a pleasant sense of acquaintanceship, the sense of sharing an idea with a respected friend.

to go into solitude, a man needs to retire as much from his chamber as from society. i am not solitary whilst i read and write, though nobody is with me.

the next line of the essay made him sit up straight in the chair. he read it over twice, then closed the pamphlet and carefully put it back in the bookcase with a vague feeling of having been either betrayed or helped, he couldn't tell which.

as he was turning out the lights to go to bed, his com buzzed. answering it, he recognized the voice of banning's secretary.

"mr. meany, can you get back to the base right away? something's happened."

"what is it?" colin snapped.

"the colonel has gotten back into phoenix i."

"... understand exactly how it happened," banning said. "he seemed to be sleeping peacefully, and one of the men went in the room to take out his garbage, for christ's sake. when the door opened, he made a dash for it."

the two men stood in the control room before the wide window-wall looking out on the landing pad. phoenix i, still surrounded by scaffolding, was brightly lit in the glaring beams of a dozen searchlights playing from the gila base buildings and trucks on the field.

"can he take it off?" colin asked.

"i don't think so," banning said. "sergeant, is there fuel in those tanks?"

"yes, sir," said one of the men in the group that crowded in front of the window. "but the feed valve is off. it can't get into the firing chambers."

"what would happen if he tried?" colin asked.

"nothing," banning said. "it wouldn't fire. unless—unless he didn't pay any attention to the board, and left his hotpoints on after he saw it wouldn't fire."

"what are hotpoints?"

"the ignition elements. they'd melt down under continuous heating and—well, then we wouldn't have any more problem. the tanks would go."

"you'd better clear the field," colin said quietly after a minute. "sergeant," he said to the radioman, "would you give the phoenix a 'message coming' beep?"

the radioman did, then said to colin, "go ahead."

"is he receiving?"

"yes, sir."

"colonel harkins," colin said. "colonel harkins, can you hear me?"

the loudspeakers buzzed.

"colonel harkins, please reply."

the speakers snapped once. the sound of harkins' whistle came over, loud at first, then drifting away. he was whistling the same tune as before.

"... had a true wife but i left her, oh, oh, oh, oh ..."

"do you want her back again?" banning asked, recognizing the melody.

"colonel harkins, please reply," colin said. switching the mike off, he turned to banning. "better get her," he said. "we may have to go through the whole thing again."

it took twelve minutes by the control clock before they heard the door of the room open, and the light tapping of martha harkins' feet. banning and colin turned away from the window to greet her.

suddenly their shadows were thrown violently ahead of them, leaping across the floor and up the opposite wall like frightened animals trying to escape.

they swung back to the window, their words of greeting still unspoken. for perhaps a half second they could make out the upper part of phoenix i, standing above the ugly glare like the nose of a whale thrusting up through a sea of boiling flame. then it disappeared, and the fire-ball climbed suddenly into the night sky, rolling and twisting in on itself. a gantry tipped and fell out of the flame with ponderous slowness, twisted and melted before it crashed to the pad. then the unbearable glare died, and the searchlights played on an opaque black column of smoke, redly lit from within, standing where phoenix i had stood.

the roar that shook the building seemed to come much too late.

colin slumped disconsolately in the control room, staring blankly out at the clusters of beetle-like trucks clustered around the landing pad, with their feathery antennae caressing the stack of still-burning wreckage. washed down by the foam trucks, the fire would soon be out. but there would be little advantage to it, except to clear the pad.

"how's mrs. harkins?" he asked without turning as he heard footsteps behind him.

"under sedation," general banning said. he came to stand beside the psychiatrist, looked with him at the firecrew's activity, so disorganized and insect-like at a distance.

"they'll have it out pretty soon," he said unnecessarily.

"mm."

both men were silent. after a while, colin tamped in fresh tobacco and lit his pipe, sending up cottony puffs of smoke.

"what do we do now?" he said absently.

general banning sighed.

"see that hangar?" he asked, gesturing to a tall building perhaps a quarter mile away down the edge of the field.

colin nodded.

"phoenix ii," the general said, and his voice was flat and expressionless.

"send another man into it, knowing no more than we know?"

"we have to know," banning said. "men have died before without as good reason."

"i'm going home. call me if you need me."

colin stood, and the general made a silent gesture of helplessness. they wouldn't need him. not until phoenix ii came home. then they would need him.

colin spoke, quietly, as if thinking of something else.

"i didn't hear you," banning said.

"quoting emerson. the essay on nature i mentioned."

"what did he say?"

"'but if a man would be alone,'" colin quoted, "'let him look at the stars.' good night, general."

"good night."

colin walked outside into the cold desert air. the night was clear and crisp, and the milky way hurled itself like a mass of vapor across the sky.

... if a man would be alone, let him look at the stars ...

he looked up, and was alone in the night.