.

"And then the President himself stepped forward with the flowers. That's
where the real trouble began, with the flowers. I remember Ross
stretching out his arms to take the bouquet, like a mother reaching for
a baby. Then suddenly he dropped them, sneezing and coughing and sobbing
for breath, and the President reached out to help him, asking him over
and over what was wrong.

"It was the same with all of us, and we turned and staggered back to the
ship, closing the lock behind us. It was bad then. God, I'll never
forget it! The five of us, moaning in agony, gasping for breath, our
eyes all swollen shut, and the itching ... that itching." Gregory
shuddered.

* * * * *

Even the emotionally disciplined James set his teeth and felt his scalp
crawl at the memory of that horror. He glanced toward the viewport, as
though to cleanse his mind of the memory. He could see Ross out there,
among the geraniums, moving slowly and painfully in his heavy spacesuit.
Occupational therapy. Ross watered flowers and Gregory talked and
Frankston was bitter and ... himself? Observation, maybe.

Gregory's voice began again, "And then they were pounding on the lock,
begging us to let the doctor in, but we were all rolling and thrashing
with the itching, burning, sneezing, and finally James got himself under
control enough to open the locks and let them in.

"Then came the tests, allergy tests. Remember those? They'd cut a little
row of scratches in your arm ..." Each man instinctively glanced at his
forearm, saw neat rows of tiny pink scars, row on row. "Then they'd put
a little powder in each cut and each kind of powder was an extract of
some common substance we might be allergic to. The charts they made were
full of 'P's, P for positive, long columns of big, red 'P's. All pollen,
dust, wool, nylon, cotton, fish, meat, fruit, vegetables, grain, milk,
whisky, cigarettes, dogs, cats--everything! And wasn't it funny about us
being allergic to women's face powder? Ha! We were allergic to women
from their nylon hose to their face powder.

"Thirty years of breathing purified, sterilized, filtered air, thirty
years of drinking distilled water and swallowing synthetic food tablets
had changed us. The only things we weren't allergic to were the metal
and plastic and synthetics of our ship, _this_ ship. We're allergic to
Earth. That's funny, isn't it?"

Gregory began to rock back and forth, laughing the thin hi