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five names, faces, tones of voice and military insignias, McCullough

knew very little about his colleagues and self-elected patients.
     
     
Basically they were well adjusted introverts -- an astronaut had no business

being anything else -- and both Captain Berryman and Major Walters had shown

great thoughtfulness and consideration in their dealings with him.
     
     
Where Colonel Morrison was concerned, he had less to go on. The colonel

was polite but reserved and there had been very little prior social contact

between them. The same applied to Major Drew. The third member of

Morrison's crew was the physicist, Captain Hollis. His rank, like that

of McCullough's, did not mean very much and had probably been given

in order to simplify Army paperwork and make it easier for them to be

ordered to do things. Hollis did not talk much and when he did it was in

shy, low-voiced polysyllables. Apparently he got his kicks from playing

chess and fixing his friends' TV sets.
     
     
Then there was Lieutenant Colonel McCullough, of course, a complex

personality whose motivations McCullough had thought he understood

until he found himself volunteering for this job. He had been undergoing

training for MOL service, the idea being to have him share one of the

orbiting laboratories with a number of lab animals and make a study

of life processes in the weightless condition. Like the others he was

unmarried and this was probably a good thing, despite the generally held

belief that marriage gave added strength and emotional stability to an

astronaut, because Prometheus might very well become a suicide mission.
     
     
McCullough wriggled in his couch, even though all positions were equally

comfortable in the weightless condition. Beyond the port, Earth was

in darkness with the moon just about to slip over the sharply curved

horizon. Cloud masses and continental outlines were gray and indistinct,

with the stars above the horizon and the cities below it shining with

the same intensity so that the whole planet seemed transparent and

insubstantial, like a world of ectoplasm.
     
     
It was as if the final war had started and finished while he wasn't looking

and the whole world had died, McCullough thought rather fancifully as he

slipped over the edge of sleep, and a planet-sized ghost eternally pursued

its orbit around the Sun . . .
     
     
But when he awakened some hours later, the Earth was again solid and

condensed into a bright sphere which was just small enough to fit within

the rim of the port. Berryman and Walters were already awake and when

they saw that McCullough had joined them, the command pilot passed out

breakfast. They were squeezing the last of it from their tubes when

there was an interruption.
     
     
"This is Prometheus Control. Good morning, gentlemen! If you have

nothing better to do, and we are sure you haven't, we would like you to

take your first lecture. We have now decided to increase the frequency

of these lectures from two to three per day. The first one, which should

prove very helpful when you reach the Ship, deals with multidimensional

geometry . . ."
     
     
"Ugh," said Berryman.
     
     
"Drop dead," said Walters.
     
     
"No comment," said McCullough.
     
     
"Thank you for your cooperation, gentlemen. If you will have pencils

and paper ready . . ."
     
     
"Negative, negative!" the voice of Colonel Morrison broke in. "P-One to Prometheus Control and P-Two. I advise against taking written

notes. Paper is limited and may be needed for purposes of communications

and supplementary sketches for the photographs taken at the Ship."
     
     
"A good point, Colonel. Very well, mental notes only until a decision

has been taken in this matter. And now, if you're ready to begin . . ."
     
     
There was a short silence broken by two bursts of static and an apologetic

cough, then a new voice said, "Well now, the subject of this lecture

may itself need an explanation and it is