I can't," replied Ted Wilson. "I don't like the idea of you taking to space."

"I do," she said simply. "I want to see these places you are always telling me about. I want to see 'em before I'm sixty. It's no fun listening to your stories, then having you trot off for three or four months on another jaunt while I sit home alone and wonder where you are and what's doing."

"But we—" He paused, thinking. "Alice," he said suddenly, "will you marry me?"

A welling of tears came then, but Alice blinked them back. "If you'd asked me that a month ago I would have said 'Yes,' with no stipulations, but right now I'll say 'Yes, as soon as I come back, if you still want me.' Understand?"

"Not quite."

"I want you to be dead certain that the reason you want to marry me is not to keep me from taking this spaceflight."

Ted looked down at her. "I'd really like to know if you accepted this trip just to force me into asking you," he said slowly.

"You'll never know," she said with a bright smile.

He swore under his breath. "I still don't like the idea of you trotting off to Castor Three with that old goat."

"Mr. Andrews? Old goat? Why Ted! You're jealous."

"I am."

"Good. Stay jealous. But don't be an imbecile. Mr. Andrews is merely my boss, not my lover. He has never so much as watched me walk, let alone made a pass at me. I couldn't think of him as anything but a boss."

"But up there—"

Alice shook her head. "Forget it, Ted. I'm still your girl, and I intend to stay that way. Even though it's smart for a girl to have a lover or two before she marries, I'm the old-fashioned one-man type. Virgin. No hits, no runs, no errors, and no one left on first base."

"Okay," he said sullenly.

She smiled up at him again. "Ted," she said seriously, "don't you see I have to go a-space? You've ducked marriage because you can't see two people living on a commodore's salary, and also with you flitting off and leaving me home alone. So you want to wait until you get your next boost. But that will 

 Prev. P 2/97 next