He glanced at her. "Aren't you going to ask me if I'm impotent? Jeffers and all your other shrinks did."

Is he asking for help? "I've read your file," Marian answered. "You told them you're not."

"I told them I don't think I am."

"Explain?"

"I've been more or less restricted to quarters for the past five months. Not much of a chance to find out."

"Goon . . ."

"I can get an erection easily enough," Kinsman went on, as clinically cool as if he were reading from a textbook. "I've awoken from my nightmares with a hard-on." T29

"Nocturnal emissions?" Marian asked.

"Wet dreams? Yeah, a few times."

"Then you're functional."

"The equipment works," he said, still as distant as the horizon. "What bothers me is I haven't felt much like trying. I mean, it's been five months and I haven't even felt horny. I haven't even made a pass at any of the nurses."

We know, Colonel Campbell said to herself.

"You're closer to me right now than any woman's been since . . . since . . ."

Suddenly his hands were shaking. The plane, built for amateur pilots, flew onward as steadily as a plow horse.

Marian took over the controls as Kinsman sagged back in his seat.

"Since when?" she prompted.

"You know."

"Tell me."

"Since I murdered that girl in orbit. Since I killed her. I ripped the air line out of her helmet and killed her. Deliber- ately. I could've backed off. I could've gotten back into my own craft and de-orbited. But I killed her. I murdered her."

"Good," said Marian.

"Good?" He glared at her with pain-filled eyes.

"It's good that you're showing some emotion. You've kept it frozen beneath the surface for too long. You've been acting more like a robot than a human being for the past five months."

Kinsman looked down at his hands. They were still trembling.

"It's all right, Chet. It's all over and done with. There's nothing you can do to bring her back. What you have to decide now is ... where do you want to go from here?"

He pressed his hands palms-down on his thighs. "What did Richard the Third say? 'Let's to it, pell-mell. If not to heaven, then hand in hand to hell.'"