An image formed and wavered and formed again.

"Their words are whispered ... they speak softly in the presence of immensity...."

It crystallized....

"I'm asking as Vortler, your friend. Not Vortler, the psychosurgeon."

Side by side, they sat in the tattered light of the observation hull. Centauri lay less than one day ahead. It dangled like a full, blush peach, their silhouette its only bruised spot. Rockets hummed.

"There's no use asking any more questions Angus. The time for questions is past. This is exams."

"That's what I mean, John. Remarks like that. You've gotten to be a man who talks to himself."

Hastings sat without moving a muscle. "What did the men tell you?"

"Nothing actually." The other made a nasty sound. "No, that's true. I didn't need them. I've seen it for myself this entire trip."

"And how do you diagnose it, Doctor?" A whisky bottle gleamed in the light of the creamy sun.

"Just like that, he wants it. In two or three words. Where I need books, where Freud took volumes, he wants it in two or three words."

"And the doctor doesn't have them," John said. Angus shook his head. "But I do." He poured from the bottle. "She's seeing Charles."

Vortler snorted. "You're mistaken."

"No, I'm not. I've thought about her a lot these last three months, and I think I know her now." He leaned his head back and shut his eyes. "She's an August woman, Angus. An August woman. One night a warm breeze comes through the door and sweeps a girl into your arms. You say things, and she says things, and you both end up saying 'I do!' Then she wakes up one morning to find she doesn't any more. And another door will open, another breeze carry her off."

"Mary's not like that."

"I didn't think so in the beginning."

"You surprise me, John. I thought you had more faith."

"Not any more. With me, it's what I can touch or smell or hear or see. Nothing more."

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