y stations were all in good shape except for minor repairs,
which Aron attended to with the quiet joy of a man who loves machinery.
He was home sooner than expected and just in time. The next day it began
to snow.

The weather had opposite effects on the people in the station. Aron,
long used to such confinements, settled down and began reading some of
the great mass of books which he had brought, or working painstakingly
on hobbies.

Martha grew more distraught as the snowbound months went by. The wild
enthusiasm of her youth had left her, but she was not stoic enough to
take the long confinement and inactivity. She tried to pick arguments,
but Aron wouldn't argue. She tried to get interested in some
time-consuming hobby, but she lacked the patience.

Spring finally came. On the first nice day Martha went on a long walk to
watch the few flowers that Kligor boasted push their fragile buds into
the air. Aron spent the day working on the path and the clearing that
was a spaceport.

When night came, he was alone at the station.

Aron waited up all night, knowing it would be futile to search in the
dark, not knowing in which direction or how far she had gone on her
stroll. Aron was not too worried, since there were no dangerous animals.
She was probably lost or had a sprained ankle, in which case she would
have the sense to find a sheltered place and be safe for the night.

When morning came he began searching. He used the atmosphere flier to
cruise over the nearby country.

Up and down hillsides he flew the craft, gliding slowly at a low
altitude. He stopped over clumps of bushes for a careful scan,
occasionally roaring towards what looked like a piece of cloth, but
always turned out to be a bright stone.

When he found her, he knew before he landed. She was sprawled at the
bottom of a high cliff.

She was not pretty any more. She wasn't even a live animal, just dead
flesh lying there, smeared with blood and covered with tattered clothes.

Aron remained in a stage of pre-shock, a state of cold clear
rationality, until he had taken her back to the station, dug a grave and
buried her. He wasn't sad, it was just a job to be done. This wasn't his
wife he was burying.

It wasn't until that evening that the fact of her death penetrated and
was accepted by his mind.

* * * * *

The next few days were spent in routine actions. Aron relied on his
usual anodyne--work. The pathway and t