 What is the general's primary concern regarding the leader of the mission?
Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Astounding Science Fiction December 1955. Phil Conover pulled the zipper of his flight suit up the front of his long, thin body and came into the living room. And the faint lines around his dark, deep-set eyes were accentuated when he smiled at his wife. His wife was sitting stiffly on the flowered couch that was still not theirs completely. Yes, I'm sure you did," she said, finishing the ritual; but her voice broke, and she turned her head away. 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." "Mary, you know I can't back out now. Nothing would ever be right with me again if I didn't go. "I've got to get started, Mary. I won't be here because I won't be the wife of a space pilot for the rest of my life. "Yes, you did. 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 isn't a dream. There's nothing means anything more to me than you do—you know that. 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. He read Phil's pass, shined his flashlight in their faces, and then saluted. "Good luck, colonel," he said, and shook Phil's hand. 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.
 Peak body and brain function
 Exceptional leadership skills  Strongest intellectual quotient  Peak body and brain function  Unwavering belief in the mission