V + 

What was Pat doing, tied up with Thorsten? She was a high grade operator now, as far from the immature tease I’d known at the Academy as I could imagine. Where had she learned to handle a gun like that? Where had she gotten the experience that let her handle a job this size by herself? + 

I couldn’t answer that⁠—not any of it, and it was driving me nuts. I stared over the control banks at the forward screen, watching the stars, and beating my brains out. + 

We’d been out in space for two days, and I hadn’t dared to try and find out. You don’t, when you’re alone with the woman you love. + 

She was standing next to me, and I looked up at her. The coveralls gave a pretty good indication of what lay beneath, and it was top grade. Not that her figure was that spectacular⁠—she had something more than figures on a tape measure. There was a precision, a slim freshness and freedom to the way one curve flowed into another. It sounds silly, but the way she held herself reminded me of a thing I’d seen once; a rocket transiting the sun, fire sparkling from the shimmering hull, and the Milky Way behind it. + 

I finally caught what I was trying to phrase; she looked as if she was poised for flight. + 

She grinned down at me. “Like it?” she asked, chuckling. Her green eyes crackled with light, and there were little demons in her laugh. + 

I tried to think of a clever comeback, but I couldn’t. I just said, “Yes.” + 

I did like it. And I hated it, at the same time. + 

The ship was fast, but space is big. I had a week to plan my next moves while we worked our way through the area between Earth and Mars’ orbit where the T.S.N. kept the raiders down. + 

But the week went by, and I didn’t think of anything. I’d be working over the control board, and then I’d look up, and she’d be smiling at me. I’d raise an eyebrow, and she’d stick her tongue out. We shared cigarettes. I’d take a drag, hand her the butt, and she’d cuff me when I blew smoke in her face. + 

“Hey, Goon,” she’d say from behind the plotting board, “d’ja hear the one about the lady sociologist who wandered into Bessie’s place on Venus?” + 

I taught her original verses to “The Song of the Wandering Spacemen.” Then she taught me the verses she knew. + 

We crossed Mars’ orbit. I couldn’t think of any way to find out what I’d been killing myself over except to ask. + 

“Ever hear of the D.O.’s?” I asked quietly. + 

“Will chewing chlorophyl tablets cure ’em?” she asked. + 

I laughed so hard that I cried. + 

“I don’t think so,” I answered automatically, and got busy checking the breech assembly on one of the ship’s rocket launchers. + 

“Lay off that, apeface,” Pat said. “We won’t need it.” + 

“How come?” + 

“If anybody comes around looking unfriendly, just give ’em this on the radio,” she said, and whistled off a recognition signal in Martian. + 

I turned slowly away from the launcher. + 

Thorsten did have a deal with the Marties. What was more, Pat was in on it. She had to be. + 

She looked at my face. + 

“What’s the matter, Lump? Something you ate?” + 

“Sit down, Pat,” I said, pointing to the navigation table. “Go on, sit down!” I yelled. + 

She turned white. + 

“You know what kind of a ship this is, don’t you?” I said, feeling like I was a hundred years old. + 

“Sure.” She nodded. She was beginning to get it. “You weren’t supposed to know about that.” + 

“I didn’t. Not until we were spaceborne.” + 

Didn’t she realize? Couldn’t she see what she was doing to me? + 

“Pat, do you know what’ll happen if the Marties get this drive? They’ll be able to hit Earth and Venus with everything they’ve got, coming out of nowhere and going back into hyperspace when they’re through. The T.S.N. won’t stand a chance against them.” + 

She shrugged. “They probably would, if they ever got it, but they won’t. Harry’s going to assemble the drive, install it in his ships, and then we’ll take off. The Marties’ll be stuck.” + 

“Wait a minute⁠—you just mentioned taking off. Where to?” + 

She looked up at me. “Harry says there’s another planet out in hyperspace, somewhere, circling another star. He says people can live on it.” Her eyes were shining, and I remembered a girl on a terrace, back at the Academy, with a dream in her voice that I’d been too dumb to recognize. + 

“He does, does he? Can he prove it? How do you know what he’s really going to do?” + 

“Because he’s told me!” she flared. “He’s going to bypass the fumbling bureaucrats who run things on Earth and take mankind out to the stars⁠—mankind, Ash, the toughest, the strongest men in space, and their women. Space belongs to us, Ash, not to those Earthbound lilies!” + 

“And whose speech are you repeating?” I said, getting more and more mad every minute. “Thorsten’s?” + 

“Yes!” + 

“All right, if you think so God damned much of him, suppose you tell me what he is to you now?” I asked. + 

“He’s my husband.” She didn’t even hesitate. + 

I started for her, before I could think of words for the doublecrossing.⁠ ⁠… + 

She came off the navigation table like a coiled spring. She had a gun in her hand. + 

“Ash⁠—get back! I don’t want to hurt you. Ash⁠—can’t you see why? Do you think I’m the kind who⁠—?” + 

I kept coming. “No,” I said, “I can’t see why. I’m not built so I could see why. And yes, I do think you’re the kind.” + 

“I don’t know why I had to pick you!” she screamed then. “Maybe I remembered something⁠—maybe I found something out, after it was too late⁠—” + 

She was crying, but she was bringing the gun up at the same time. + 

I didn’t care. I didn’t care if she pulled the trigger or not. + 

“I told you,” I said between my teeth. + 

She had the gun aimed right at me. Her face was gray, and her hand was shaking. + 

“I told you the last time what I’d do if you ever pointed a gun at me again.” My voice was coming out low, but it had absolutely nothing in it. It was just words, coming out one by one. + 

The gun muzzle was shaking badly. She put up her hand to steady it. + 

“I⁠—” she said. There were tears running down her cheeks in a steady wet stream. + 

She should have pulled the trigger. I think she should have. But she didn’t. + 

I smashed my fist against the gun, and it was out of her hands, crashing into metal somewhere. + 

“Ash!” she screamed, and raked her nails across my face. + 

She kicked up her knee, and fire exploded in my groin. I fell forward, slamming her down on the deck, and threw my entire dead weight across her shoulders. + 

I didn’t have to. Her head had hit the deck, and she lay unconscious, blood seeping out through her hair. + 

She wouldn’t talk to me. She lay on her bunk, her chest rising and falling under the straps I’d buckled around her. + 

I tried to explain, to make her understand, somehow. + 

“Pat, I’ve got a responsibility to the people I work for. I’ve spent the last ten years keeping characters like Harry Thorsten from taking over this System. It’s a rough job, and it’s a dirty one. I can’t help that. I don’t like it. Pat, it’s got to be this way.” + 

She wouldn’t talk to me. She wouldn’t listen. I walked out of her cabin, locking the door behind me. + 

Locking a door and forgetting what’s on the other side are two different things. + 

I went up to the control room and set a course for Titan. Maybe once we got out there, I’d be able to convince her. + 

It was a lousy hope. I didn’t even understand her⁠—she was like something I’d never seen before. How could she be like she was? How, goddam it, how? + 