course, to wait until the ground at
least partly cooled before the landing-sling could be used. Around them
the noises of the forest continued. There were cooling, crackling sounds
from the ship.

"I wonder how they found their way back!" said Babs. "I didn't think
they ever could. Did you?"

"Babs," said Cochrane, "you lied to me! You said you'd wake me in two
hours. But you let me sleep all night!"

"You'd let me sleep the night before," she told him composedly. "I was
fresher than you were, and today'd have been a pretty bad one. We were
going to try to kill some animals. You needed the rest."

Cochrane said slowly:

"I found out something, Babs. Why you could face things. Why we humans
haven't all gone mad. I think I've gotten the woman's viewpoint now,
Babs. I like it."

She inspected the looming blister-ports of the ship, now waiting for the
ground to cool so they could come aboard.

"I think we'd have made out if the ship hadn't come," Cochrane told her.
"We'd have had a woman's viewpoint to work from. Yours. You looked ahead
to building a house. Of course you thought of finding food, but you were
thinking of the possibility of winter and--building a house. You weren't
thinking only of survival. You were thinking far ahead. Women must think
farther ahead than men do!"

Babs looked at him briefly, and then returned to her apparently absorbed
contemplation of the ship.

"That's what's the matter with people back on Earth," Cochrane said
urgently. "There's no frustration as long as women can look ahead--far
ahead, past here and now! When women can do that, they can keep men
going. It's when there's nothing to plan for that men can't go on
because women can't hope. You see? You saw a city here. A little city,
with separate homes. On Earth, too many people can't think of more than
living-quarters and keeping food enough for them--them only!--coming in.
They can't hope for more. And it's when that happens--You see?"

Babs did not answer. Cochrane fumbled. He said angrily:

"Confound it, can't you see what I'm trying to say? We'd have been
better off, as castaways, than back on Earth crowded and scared of our
jobs! I'm saying I'd rather stay here with you than go back to the way I
was living before we started off on this voyage! I think the two of us
could make out under any circumstances! I don't want to try to make out
without you! It isn't sense!" Then he scowled helplessly. "Dammit, I've
staged plenty