Eventually, Connington announces he is quitting, and Claire leaves with him. His relationship with Claire deteriorates, even as Connington continues his disastrous attempts to win her, at one point receiving a severe beating from Barker. Claire tries to get under Hawks' skin while simultaneously playing Connington off against Barker.īarker is the first to retain his sanity after dying in the artifact, but even he is deeply affected, exclaiming, '.it didn't care! I was nothing to it!' He returns again and again, advancing a little farther each time. Hawks has to appeal to Barker's dark side to persuade him to join the project. Connington wants her, but she stays with Barker because he has no weaknesses in her eyes.

Where Connington covets power, and Barker seems to love death, Claire enjoys using sex, or the prospect of sex, to manipulate men. Hawks also meets Barker's girlfriend, Claire Pack, a sociopath of a different kind. He takes Hawks to see Al Barker, an adventurer and thrill-seeker. Vincent 'Connie' Connington, Continental's head of personnel, tells Hawks that he has found the perfect candidate for the next mission.

However, none of the participants have been able to remain sane after experiencing death second-hand. Each explorer gets a little further and learns a bit more about what they can and cannot do.

The copies enter and explore the alien labyrinth, but are killed for violating the unknown rules in force within the structure. The earthbound person is placed in a state of sensory deprivation which allows him to share the experiences of his doppelgänger. Hawks has created a matter transmitter which scans a person or object to make a copy at receivers on the Moon. Edward Hawks runs a top-secret project for the United States Navy investigating a large alien artifact found on the Moon. The object eventually kills its explorers in various ways-more specifically, investigators 'die in their effort to penetrate an alien-built labyrinth where one wrong turn means instant death', but their deaths slowly reveal the funhouse-like course humans must take in moving through it. Rogue Moon is largely about the discovery and investigation of a large alien artifact found on the surface of the Moon. It was adapted into a radio drama by Yuri Rasovsky in 1979. A substantially cut version of the novel was originally published in F&SF this novella-length story was included in The Science Fiction Hall of Fame, Volume Two, edited by Ben Bova. Rogue Moon is a short science fiction novel by American writer Algis Budrys, published in 1960.

Rogue Moon by Algis Budrys