get you stationed on some planetary post. I'll get one flight to Base, then be set down for years. Well, until that time I'm going to travel and see the interstellar sights. I want to see the Dark Column on Procyon Five, I want to visit the Golden Rainbow on Castor Three, and toss a penny into the Bottomless Pit on Pollux Four, and.... Well, I can do these things so long as Mr. Andrews wants me to travel."

"But—"

"Oh, Ted—please!" she cried.

She clutched at him and buried her face in his shoulder. He held her, then put a hand under her chin and lifted her face. He kissed her, not tenderly, but with more of a frantic striving for something beyond reach.

The siren wail lifted again and the loud-speaker boomed:

"Last call for Spaceflight Seventy-nine at Gateway Seven. Will Miss Alice Hemingway please proceed to Gateway Seven!"

Reluctantly she withdrew herself from her sweetheart's arms and turned to the gateway. Ted picked up her small bag and followed her.

As they reached the gate a smallish, nervous, wiry man with a clipped gray mustache eyed Alice crisply.

"Ah, Miss Hemingway, you're just in time," he said. He smiled thinly as he looked at Ted Wilson. "However, I presume the delay was justified. Commodore, I think the use of your handkerchief is essential."

Before Ted could reply, Mr. Andrews had walked through the gateway to the waiting spaceport bus. Alice turned back to Ted and held up her face. This time their kiss was less frantic, but also less personal. It was chaste, and brief, and proper. It promised for the future, but it did not give any part of that future warmth or passion as a down payment.

Then Alice came out of his arms and went through the gateway to climb into the bus beside her boss.

As Commodore Wilson turned away, the bus drove off along the road to the waiting spacecraft.

Commodore Wilson entered the base commander's office and smiled glumly. The commander, Space Admiral Leonard F. Stone, a man of about forty-five and as lithe and as hard as a man of that age could be, looked expectant. His command was exacting and just, but he was also human.

He said, "What's troubling you, Wilson?"

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