_Why had five spaceships, each tested again and again right down to its tiniest rivet, started for the Moon and ended up in Hell?_ I lit the last cigarette I would ever smoke and took my airsuit out of the compartment under the control-board. The two-man cubicle was coffin-cold even under the blast of sunlight pouring through the forward port, and the air smelled of stale tobacco and machine oil. Beside me Charlie Kosta's voice droned into the communicator, winging back two-hundred thirty thousand miles to the listening millions of Earth.…
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