r seeing you again."

"I haven't gone yet," he reminded her. "I don't know that I'll get the
job. There are three Seniors at base right now. One of them might want
it. Even if I do get the problem, who says I won't be back? You take old
McGinnis. He's eighty if he's a day. He's been an E for nigh on to fifty
years. He's still around, you'll notice."

She was quieter now. She lay, looking at him, drinking in his dark hair,
blue eyes, handsome face, the shape of his intelligent head, the slope
of his neck and shoulders, the tapering waist, all the masculine grace
and beauty. She pressed her closed fist into her mouth. All the beauty
she might never see again, feel enfolded around her, enfold with
herself.

"I'm a little fool," she said through clenched teeth. "Of course you'll
be back. And you'd better make it quick, or I'll come after you."

He kissed her, rumpled her short hair, straightened her crumpled body on
the bed, pulled the sheet over her.

"Why don't you go back to sleep," he suggested. "Rest. I'll have
breakfast in the E club room. That's where we'll be watching the Eden
briefing. Sleep. Sleep all morning."

Gently he closed her eyes with the tip of his forefinger. Gently he
kissed her once more. This time she didn't cling to him, try to hold
him.

He tucked the sheet in around her throat. Dutifully, she kept her eyes
closed. He stood up then, and signaled the orderly.

"I'll take my shower now," he said.

The orderly didn't speak, just followed him into the bathroom to stand
in the doorway and watch him through the shower glass. He was rigidly
obeying the cardinal rule of E.H.Q.

Unless his life is in danger, never interrupt the thinking of an E. The
whole course of man's destiny in the universe may depend on it.

How much of the future of the universe depended upon his not
interrupting the scene he had just witnessed wasn't for him to say. He
sighed. He thought of his own wife--shrewish, fat, coarse, always
complaining. He wondered what she would do if he picked her up, carried
her to bed, closed her eyes with his fingers. For once, he'd bet, she'd
be speechless.

He must try it sometime. But first, she'd have to lose about fifty
pounds.

* * * * *

When Cal got to the E club room two Seniors were already there--McGinnis
and Wong. He thought their greeting was a shade more cordial, a shade
more interested than usual. They seemed, this time, to be looking at hi