g the car, or sitting close ... and it occurred to me that
maybe it did, and maybe there was a lot I _didn't_ know that wasn't on
Television, and wasn't on the Ship's reference tapes either. Morals
and mores, and nuances of behavior. So I shut up, and let him take me
back to the hotel again, to my own car.

He leaned past me to open the door on my side, but he couldn't quite
make it, and I had my fourth kiss. Then he let go again, and almost
pushed me out of the car; but when I started to close the door behind
me, he called out, "Tomorrow night?"

"I ... all right," I said. "Yes. Tomorrow night."

"Can I pick you up?"

There was no reason not to this time. The first time I wouldn't tell
him where I lived, because I knew I'd have to change places, and I
didn't know where yet. I told him the name of the motel, and where it
was.

"Six o'clock," he said.

"All right."

"Good night."

"Good night."

* * * * *

I don't remember driving back to my room. I think I slept on the bed
that night, without ever stopping to determine whether it was
comfortable or not. And when I woke up in the morning, and looked out
the window at a white-coated landscape, the miracle of snow (which I
had never seen before; not many planets have as much water vapor in
their atmospheres as Earth does.) in summer weather seemed trivial in
comparison to what had happened to me.

Trivial, but beautiful. I was afraid it would be very cold, but it
wasn't.

I had gathered, from the weather-talk in the place where I ate
breakfast, that in this mountain-country (it was considered to be very
high altitude there), snow at night and hot sun in the afternoon was
not infrequent in the month of April, though it was unusual for May.

It was beautiful to look at, and nice to walk on, but it began melting
as soon as the sun was properly up, and then it looked awful. The red
dirt there is pretty, and so is the snow, but when they began merging
into each other in patches and muddy spots, it was downright ugly.

Not that I cared. I ate oatmeal and drank milk and nibbled at a piece
of toast, and tried to plan my activities for the day. To the library
first, and take back the book they'd lent me. Book ... all right then,
get a book on sex. But that was foolish; I _knew_ all about sex. At
least I knew ... well, what did I know? I knew their manner of
reproduction, and....

Just why, at that time and place, I should have let