ou weren't, you'd never get
past the psychologists.

"Did you like horror movies when you were a kid?" asked the psych. And
you'd damn well better answer "yes," if you want to go to space.

* * * * *

Tell her, old man, you're her pop. Tell her why it's worth it, if you
know. You jail yourself in a coffin-size cubicle, and a crazy beast
thunders berserk for uncontrollable seconds, and then you soar in
ominous silence for the long, long hours. Grow sweaty, filthy, sick,
miserable, idle--somewhere out in Big Empty, where Man's got no business
except the trouble he always makes for himself wherever he goes. Tell
her why it's worth it, for pay less than a good bricklayer's. Tell her
why Oley would do it again.

"It's a sucker's run, Nora," he said. "You go looking for kicks, but the
only kicks you get to keep is what Oley got. God knows why--but it's
worth it."

Nora said nothing. He opened his eyes slowly. Nora was gone. Had she
been there at all?

He blinked around at the fuzzy room, and dissolved the shifting shadows
that sometimes emerged as old friendly faces, grinning at him. He found
Martha.

"You went to sleep," said Martha. "She had to go. Kennie called. He'll
be over later, if you're not too tired."

"I'm not tired. I'm all head. There's nothing much to get tired."

"I love you, Old Donegal."

"Hold my hand again."

"I'm holding it, old man."

"Then hold me where I can feel it."

She slid a thin arm under his neck, and bent over his face to kiss him.
She was crying a little, and he was glad she could do it now without
fleeing the room.

"Can I talk about dying now?" he wondered aloud.

She pinched her lips together and shook her head.

"I lie to myself, Martha. You know how much I lie to myself?"

She nodded slowly and stroked his gray temples.

"I lie to myself about Ken, and about dying. If Ken turned spacer, I
wouldn't die--that's what I told myself. You know?"

She shook her head. "Don't talk, Donny, please."

"A man makes his own soul, Martha."

"That's not true. You shouldn't say things like that."

"A man makes his own soul, but it dies with him, unless he can pour it
into his kids and his grandchildren before he goes. I lied to myself.
Ken's a yellow-belly. Nora made him one, and the boots won't fit."

"Don't, Donny. You'll excite yourself again."

"I was going to give him the boots--the over-boots with magnasoles. But
they won't fit him. They