her in his arms, feeling her warmth radiate through him. She
was very tall, he realized, almost as tall as a Spacer woman--but with
none of the harsh ruggedness of the women of Spacertown. They danced,
she well, he clumsily. When the music stopped she guided him to the
entrance of a veranda.

They walked outside into the cool night air. The lights of the city
obscured most of the stars, but a few still showed, and the moon hung
high above Yawk. He could dimly make out the lights of Spacertown across
the river, and he thought again of Laney and Kanaday and wished Kanaday
could see him now with this beautiful Earther next to him.

"You must get lonely in space," she said after a while.

"I do," he said, trying to keep his voice gentle. "But it's where I
belong. I'm bred for it."

She nodded. "Yes. And any of those so-called men inside would give ten
years of his life to be able to go to space. But yet you say it's
lonely."

* * * * *

"Those long rides through the night," he said. "They get you down. You
want to be back among people. So you come back. You come back. And what
do you come back to?"

"I know," she said softly. "I've seen Spacertown."

"Why must it be that way?" he demanded. "Why are Spacers so lucky and
so wretched all at once?"

"Let's not talk about it now," she said.

I'd like to kiss her, he thought. But my face is rough, and I'm rough
and ugly, and she'd push me away. I remember the pretty little Earther
girls who ran laughing away from me when I was thirteen and fourteen,
before I went to space.

"You don't have to be lonely," she said. One of her perfect eyebrows
lifted just a little. "Maybe someday you'll find someone who cares,
Rolf. Someday, maybe."

"Yeah," he said. "Someday, maybe." But he knew it was all wrong. Could
he bring this girl to Spacertown with him? No; she must be merely
playing a game, looking for an evening's diversion. Something new: make
love to a Spacer.

They fell silent and he watched her again, and she watched him. He heard
her breath rising and falling evenly, not at all like his own thick
gasps. After a while he stepped close to her, put his arm around her,
tilted her head into the crook of his elbow, bent, and kissed her.

As he did it, he saw he was botching it just like everything else. He
had come too close, and his heavy boot was pressing on the tip of her
shoe; and he had not quite landed square on her lips. But still,