anet of failures, and I
might. Go ahead and tell me I'm the same as your first husband. If I
can't even keep my word to you, I can at least get out and stay out." He
shook his head, waiting for her denunciation. "For your amusement, I'm
going to miss having you around!"

He stood up. Something touched his hand, and he looked down to see her
fingers.

"Bruce," she said faintly, "you meant it! You don't hate me any more."
She rubbed her wrist across her eyes, and the ghost of a smile touched
her lips. "I don't think you're a failure. And maybe--maybe I'm not.
Maybe I don't have to be a failure as a woman--a wife, Bruce. I don't
want you to go!"

* * * * *

Two worlds. One huddled under its dome, forever afraid of losing that
protection and having to face the life the other led; and yet driven to
work together or to perish together. The sacred dome!

And suddenly he was shaking her. "The dome! It has to be the answer!
Cuddles, you broke the chain enough for me to think again! We've been
blind--the whole damned planet has been blind."

She blinked and then frowned. "Bruce--"

"I'm all right! I'm just half sane instead of all insane for a change."
He got up, pacing the floor as he talked.

"Look, most of the people here are Martians. They've left Earth behind,
and they're meeting this planet on its own terms. And they're adapting.
Third-generation children--not all, but a lot of them--are breathing the
air we'd die on, and they're doing fine at it. Probably
second-generation ones can keep going after we'd pass out. It's just as
true out here as it is on the frontier. But Marsport has that sacred
dome over it. It's still trying to be Earth. And it can't do it. It's
never had a chance to adjust here, and it's afraid to try."

"Maybe," she agreed doubtfully. "But what about this part of Marsport?"

"Obvious. Here, they grow up under the shadow of it. They live in a
half-world, and they have to live on the crumbs the dome tosses them.
Sheila, if something happened to that dome--"

"We'd be killed," she said. "How do we do it?"

He frowned, and then grinned slowly. "Maybe not!"

They spent the rest of the night discussing it. Sometime during the
discussion, she made coffee, and first Randolph, then the Kid came in
for briefing. Randolph was a natural addition, and the Kid had been
alternately following Gordon and Sheila around since he'd first heard
they were fighting against the men