ords. He had sent Ann a
micropic telling her when his ship would be in. Of course, there was
that commission-job she had taken--

Abruptly he was face to face again with the vague fear that had nagged
at his mind for nearly a month. This wasn't like Ann. Always before
she had sent him every two or three days a chatty micropic, using the
private code they had invented to cut the unit cost of words. But four
weeks had now passed since he had last heard from her.

In an attempt at self-assurance, he recalled to mind just how exacting
a commission-job could be. Perhaps Ann had been working so hard she
had simply not had the time to send him a message.

Not even five minutes to send a micropic?

It didn't occur to him that she might be ill, for preventive medicine
had long ago made physical disease a trivial factor in human affairs.
A maladjustment then, with commitment to a city clinic? But Ann Saymer
held a First in Psychiatry.

Hunter fingered the Saving Fund record in his pocket--the goal he and
Ann had worked for so long. Nothing could go wrong now, nothing! He
said the words over in his mind as he might have repeated the litany
of a prayer, although Max Hunter did not consider himself a religious
man.

At sixteen he and Ann Saymer had fallen in love, while they had both
been in the last semester of the general school. They could have
married then, or they might have registered for the less permanent
companionship-union.

In either case, both of them would have had to go to work. Hunter
could not have entered the space service, which enrolled only single
men and Ann could not have afforded the university.

It hadn't mattered to Hunter. But Ann had possessed enough ambition
for them both. She knew she had the ability to earn a First in
Psychiatry, and would settle for nothing less. The drive that kept
their goal alive was hers. She was determined to establish a clinic of
her own. The plan she worked out was very practical--for Ann was in
all respects the opposite of an idle dreamer.

Hunter was to join a commercial spacefleet. His bonus credits would
accumulate to supply their capital, while he paid her university
tuition from his current earnings. After they married, Hunter was to
manage the finances of the clinic while Ann became the resident
psychiatrist.

Even at sixteen Ann Saymer had very positive ideas about curing mental
illness, which was the epidemic sickness of their world. Eight years
later, whi