Maybe we should never have ventured out into space. Our race has but two basic, innate fears; noise, and the fear of falling. Those terrible heights—Why should any man in his right mind let himself be placed where he could fall…and fall…and fall—But all spacemen are crazy. Everyone knows that.
The Medicos had been very kind, he supposed. “You’re lucky. You want to remember that old fellow. You’re still young and your retired pay relieves you of all worry about your future. You’ve got both arms and legs and are in fine shape.”
“Fine shape!” His voice was unintentionally contemptuous. “No, I mean it,” the chief psychiatrist had persisted gently. “The little quirk you have does you no harm at all—except that you can’t go out into space again. I can’t honestly call acrophobia a neurosis; fear of falling is normal and sane. You’ve just got it a little more strongly than most—but that is not abnormal, in view of what you have been through.
The reminder sent him to shaking again. He closed his eyes and saw the stars wheeling below him again. He was falling…falling endlessly. The psychiatrist’s voice came back through to him and pulled him back. “Steady old man! Look around you.”
“Sorry.”
“Not at all. Now tell me, what do you plan to do?”
“I don’t know. Get a job I suppose.”
