Phil Conover pulled the zipper of his flight suit up the front of his long, thin body and came into the living room. His face, usually serious and quietly handsome, had an alive, excited look. And the faint lines around his dark, deep-set eyes were accentuated when he smiled at his wife.

“All set, honey. How do I look in my monkey suit?”

His wife was sitting stiffly on the flowered couch that was still not theirs completely. In her fingers she held a cigarette burned down too far. She said, “You look fine, Phil. You look just right.” She managed a smile. Then she leaned forward and crushed the cigarette in the ash tray on the maple coffee table and took another from the pack.

He came to her and touched his hands to her soft blond hair, raising her face until she was looking into his eyes. “You’re the most beautiful girl I know. Did I ever tell you that?”

“Yes, I think so. Yes, I’m sure you did,” she said, finishing the ritual; but her voice broke, and she turned her head away. Phil sat beside her and put his arm around her small shoulders. He had stopped smiling.

“Honey, look at me,” he said. “It isn’t going to be bad. Honestly it isn’t. We know exactly how it will be. If anything could go wrong, they wouldn’t be sending me; you know that. I told you that we’ve sent five un-manned ships up and everyone came back without a hitch.”

She turned, facing him. There were tears starting in the corners of her wide, brown eyes, and she brushed them away with her hand.

“Phil, don’t go. Please don’t. They can send Sammy. Sammy doesn’t have a wife. Can’t he go? They’d understand, Phil. Please!” She was holding his arms tightly with her hands, and the color had drained from her cheeks.

“Mary, you know I can’t back out now. How could I? It’s been three years. You know how much I’ve wanted to be the first man to go. Nothing would ever be right with me again if I didn’t go. Please don’t make it hard.” He stopped talking and held her to him and stroked the back of her head. He could feel her shoulders shaking with quiet sobs. He released her and stood up.

“I’ve got to get started, Mary. Will you come to the field with me?”

“Yes, I’ll come to say good-by.” She paused and dropped her eyes. “Phil, if you go, I won’t be here when you get back--if you get back. I won’t be here because I won’t be the wife of a space pilot for the rest of my life. It isn’t the kind of life I bargained for. No matter how much I love you, I just couldn’t take that, Phil. I’m sorry. I guess I’m not the noble sort of wife.”

She finished and took another cigarette from the pack on the coffee table and put it to her lips. Her hand was trembling as she touched the lighter to the end of the cigarette and drew deeply. Phil stood watching her, the excitement completely gone from his eyes.

“I wish you had told me this a long time ago, Mary,” Phil said. His voice was dry and low. “I didn’t know you felt this way about it.”

“Yes, you did. I told you how I felt. I told you I could never be the wife of a space pilot. But I don’t think I ever really believed it was possible--not until this morning when you said tonight was the take-off. It’s so stupid to jeopardize everything we’ve got for a ridiculous dream!”

He sat down on the edge of the couch and took her hands between his. “Mary, listen to me,” he said. “It isn’t a dream. It’s real. There’s nothing means anything more to me than you do--you know that. But no man ever had the chance to do what I’m going to do tonight--no man ever. If I backed out now for any reason, I’d never be able to look at the sky again. I’d be through.”

She looked at him without seeing him, and there was nothing at all in her eyes.

“Let’s go, if you’re still going,” she finally said.

They drove through the streets of the small town with its small bungalows, each alike. There were no trees and very little grass. It was a new town, a government built town, and it had no personality yet. It existed only because of the huge ship standing poised in the take-off zone five miles away in the desert. Its future as a town rested with the ship, and the town seemed to feel the uncertainty of its future, seemed ready to stop existing as a town and to give itself back to the desert, if such was its destiny.

Phil turned the car off the highway onto the rutted dirt road that led across the sand to the field where the ship waited. In the distance they could see the beams of the searchlights as they played across the take-off zone and swept along the top of the high wire fence stretching out of sight to right and left. At the gate they were stopped by the guard. He read Phil’s pass, shined his flashlight in their faces, and then saluted. “Good luck, colonel,” he said, and shook Phil’s hand.

“Thanks, sergeant. I’ll be seeing you next week,” Phil said, and smiled. They drove between the rows of wooden buildings that lined the field, and he parked near the low barbed fence ringing the take-off zone. He turned off the ignition, and sat quietly for a moment before lighting a cigarette. Then he looked at his wife. She was staring through the windshield at the rocket two hundred yards away. Its smooth polished surface gleamed in the spotlight glare, and it sloped up and up until the eye lost the tip against the stars.

“She’s beautiful, Mary. You’ve never seen her before, have you?”

“No, I’ve never seen her before,” she said. “Hadn’t you better go?” Her voice was strained and she held her hands closed tightly in her lap. “Please go now, Phil,” she said.

He leaned toward her and touched her cheek. Then she was in his arms, her head buried against his shoulder.

“Good-by, darling,” she said.

“Wish me luck, Mary?” he asked.

“Yes, good luck, Phil,” she said. He opened the car door and got out. The noise of men and machines scurrying around the ship broke the spell of the rocket waiting silently for flight.