"But why should I?"

"That's the big question. That's what makes an adven- ture out of it."

She looked at him thoughtfully, leaning her tall frame against the galley paneling. "An adventure. There's nothing more to it in your mind than that?"

"Depends," Kinsman answered. "Hard to tell ahead of time."

"You live in a very simple world, Chet."

"I try to. Don't you?"

She shook her head. "No, my world's very complicated."

"But it includes sex."

Now she smiled, but there was no pleasure in it. "Does it?"

"You mean never?" Kinsman's voice sounded incredu- lous, even to himself.

She did not answer.

"Never at ail? I can't believe that ..."

"No," she said, nearly whispering. "Not never at all. But never for . . . for an adventure. For job security, yes. For getting the good assignments. For teaching me how to use a camera in the first place. But never for fun ... at least, not for a long, long time has it been for fun."

Kinsman looked into those cold blue eyes and saw that they were completely dry and aimed straight back at him. His insides felt strange. He put out a hand toward her but she did not move a muscle.

"That's . . . that's a damned lonely way to live,"he said.

"Yes, it is." Her voice was a steel ice pick, without a trace of self-pity in it.

"But how did it happen? Why . . . ?"

She leaned her head back against the galley paneling, her eyes looking away, into the past. "I had a baby. He didn't want it. I had to give her up for adoption—or have it aborted. The kid should be five years old now. I don't know where she is." She straightened up, looked back at Kinsman. "But I learned that sex is for making babies or making careers. Not for fun."

Kinsman hung there in midair, feeling as if he had just taken a low blow. The only sound in the cabin was the faint hum of electrical machinery, the whisper of air fans.

Linda broke into bitter laughter. "I wish you could see your own face: Tarzan the Ape Man, trying to figure out a nuclear reactor."

"The only trouble with zero gee," he grumbled, "is that you can't hang yourself,"

Jill sensed something was wrong, it seemed to Kinsman. The moment she came out of the bunkroom she started sniffing around, giving quizzical looks. When Linda retired for her final rest period before re-entry, Jill asked him:

"How're you two getting along?"

"Okay."

"Really?"