He turned back through the file for Hedstrom, George, a pleasant looking fellow of thirty—which would make him five years Clifton's junior—and in passing he came upon the picture of Portia Lavester again. He slipped the picture in the stereo and spent a long time looking at it. Quite a girl. Blonde. Unlike Karen in that respect. And she wore her hair longer. Her eyes weren't as blue as Karen's. But her skin was darker. Sun? Karen didn't like the sun. It made her freckled. But this girl must have lived in it. The stereo was inadequate, however. It didn't tell how she laughed. Did she laugh? Was it pleasing?

He put it down and looked at the record. Portia Lavester. Twenty years old. Five-feet-three. Weight 109. He looked at the picture again. The weight was well distributed.

He shuffled the picture back in the pile, tried to concentrate on Hedstrom, George. A logical choice among the single men. Mechanical background. He peeked at the Lavester record again. The girl was a home economics expert. She'd do well on Ostarpa. Or on the ship.

Clifton sighed and shoved the file away. Only then did he realize how much he had missed Karen's cooking. The ship's electronic cookery was all right, but it left much to be desired. It had no personal touch.

But to get back to Hedstrom. How would the fellow act if he awakened him? Immediately he thought of the girl and wondered what she would be like.

"Stop it!" he admonished himself. "She's much too young." And he started going through looking at the other single women. The girl Lavester was clearly the nicest. Again he studied her.

And again he forced himself to go back to the man.

Finally he decided to do nothing at present, left the office and started his rounds, determined to think of other things.

Eventually he found himself in the sleep locker looking for number 33, Portia Lavester's compartment. He saw it and discovered it was no different from number 57, the compartment of George Hedstrom. The same black oblong box with the ribbon of red plastic where it was sealed near the top. It would be easy to activate the rollers, move it out of line and out to the medocenter, rip off the plastic and charge the contents with life. He wiped away a few dust motes and found that to him the box suddenly seemed different from the others.

He was sweating.

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