"Because, sir, I hoped that I could be instrumental in helping mankind to spread across the Galaxy."
"Mr. Reed, have you sand in your shoes?"
"Sir?"
The commander sighed. "You hoped to go along on the voyage, didn't you?"
"Well, sir, I did have a hope that I'd become a real spaceman."
"And you're disappointed?"
Howard Reed's face was wistful, torn between a desire to confide in his commanding officer and the fear of saying what he knew to be a sharp criticism of the Space Service.
Then Reed realized that he was in a bad pinch anyway, and so he said, "Sir, I'm commissioned as a junior spaceman, but in three years I've only made one short test flight—and only to Luna! I am competent to pilot—or at least that's what the flight simulators say in my checkout tests. I'm a junior spaceman—yet every time I apply for active space duty, I'm refused! Three years I've spent in the Service, sir, solving theoretical and hypothetical problems in space operations. But aside from one test flight to the Moon, I have yet to set a foot inside of a spacecraft, let alone stand on the soil of another world!"
"You must learn patience, Mr. Reed."
"Patience, sir? Look, sir, I took this sedentary duty until I'd had it up to here, and then I began to pry into the question of why we have a Space Force, complete with spacecraft, and still do so little space traveling. I found out. We're limited to a maximum range of seventeen light-years to the point of no return. Even a trip to Eden, Tau Ceti, our nearest colony, is eleven-point-eight light-years, and that takes prodigious power."