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ROGUE MOON
by Algis Budrys

Copyright 1960 by Algis Budrys First Printing November 1960

All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof.

All characters in this book are fictional and any resemblance to persons living or dead is purely coincidental.

An Original Gold Medal Novel. GOLD MEDAL BOOKS Fawcett Publications, Inc. Greenwich, Conn.


To
LARRY SHAW
Journeyman Editor





Halt, Passenger!
As you are now, so once was I.
As I am now, so shall you be.
Prepare for Death, and follow me.
--New England gravestone motto




ROGUE MOON



CHAPTER ONE


1

Late on a day in 1959, three men sat in a room.
Edward Hawks, Doctor of Science, cradled his long jaw in his outsize hands and hunched forward with his sharp elbows on the desk. He was a black-haired, pale-skinned, gangling man who rarely got out in the sun. Compared to his staff of tanned young assistants, he always reminded strangers of a scarecrow. Now he was watching a young man who sat in the straight chair facing him.
The young man stared unblinkingly. His trim crewcut was wet with perspiration and plastered by it to his scalp. His features were clean, clear-skinned and healthy, but his chin was wet. "An dark . . ." he said querulously, "an dark and nowhere starlights. . . ." His voice trailed away suddenly into a mumble, but he still complained.
Hawks looked to his right.
Weston, the recently hired psychologist, was sitting there in an armchair he'd had brought down to Hawks' office. Weston, like Hawks, was in his early forties. But he was chunky where Hawks was gaunt; he was self-possessed, urbane behind his black-rimmed glasses and, now, a little impatient. He frowned slightly back toward Hawks and arched one eyebrow.
"He's insane," Hawks said to him like a wondering child.
Weston crossed his legs. "I told you that, Dr. Hawks; I told you the moment we pulled him out of that apparatus of yours. What had happened to him was too much for him to stand."
"I know you told me," Hawks said mildly. "But I'm responsible for him. I have to make sure." He began to turn back to the young man, then looked again at Weston. "He was young. Healthy. Exceptionally stable and resilient, you told me. He looked it." Hawks added slowly, "He was brilliant."
"I said he was stable," Weston explained earnestly. "I didn't say he was inhumanly stable. I told you he was an exceptional specimen of a human being. You're the one who sent him to a place no human being should go."
Hawks nodded. "You're right, of course. It's my fault."
"Well, now," Weston said quickly, "he was a volunteer. He knew it was dangerous. He knew he could expect to die."
But Hawks was ignoring Weston. He was looking straight out over his desk again.