We were about three thousand miles north, west and loft of Ceres when we first sighted him. I remember that well, because I was on the Bridge, and our Sparks, Toby Frisch, had just handed me a free clearance report from the space commander of that planetoid.
I read it and chuckled. I said, "Sparks, this bit of transcription is a masterpiece. Nobody expects a radioman to be good-looking or have brains, but blue space above, man, your spelling and grammar—"
"Leave my relatives," said Sparks stiffly, "out of this. Is the message O.Q. or ain't it?"
"Yes," I told him, "with a light sprinkling of no. Sometimes I wish we had a good operator aboard the Antigone. Like one of those Donovan brothers, for instance."
"Them guys!" sniffed Sparks. "Too wise for their britches, both of 'em. I'm a bug-pounder, not a joke-book. If it's smart cracks you want, why don't you buy an audio?"
It was at this point that Lt. Russ Bartlett, First Mate of our ship, who had been shooting the azimuth through the perilens, turned and waved to me excitedly.
"Brait, take a look! Quick! There's a man down below! On one of the minor asteroids!"
I said, "A joke, Bartlett? You'd better check the alignment of that perilens. That's the Man in the Moon you see."
Gunner McCoy, Bartlett's staunchest friend and admirer, looked up from the rotor port, wrinkled his leathery, space-toughed cheeks into a frown, and squirted mekel-juice at a distant gobboon.