for him to do now but to cut and run.
There could certainly be no reason why he should have
to re-enact the entire dream, helplessly, event for event, like
an actor committed to a play. He was awake now, in full
control of his own senses, and still at least partially sane. The
man in the dream had volunteeredbut that man would not be
Robert Helmuth. Not any longer.
While the senators were here, he would turn in his resigna-
tion. Direct, over Charity’s head.
“Wake up, Helmuth,” a voice from the gang deck snapped
suddenly. “If it hadn’t been for me, you’d have run yourself
off the end of the Bridge. You had all the automatic stops
on that beetle cut out.”
Helmuth reached guiltily and more than a little too late for
the controls. Eva had already run his beetle back beyond
the danger line.
“Sorry,” he mumbled. “Thanks, Eva.”
“Don’t thank me. If you’d actually been in it, I’d have let it
go. Less reading and more sleep is what I recommend for you,
Helmuth.”
“Keep your recommendations to yourself,” he snapped.
The incident started a new and even more disturbing chain
of thought. If he were to resign now, it would be nearly a
year before he could get back to Chicago. Antigravity or no
antigravity, the senators’ ship would have no room for unex-
pected passengers. Shipping a man back home had to be ar-
ranged far in advance. Space had to be provided, and a cargo
equivalent of the weight and space requirements he would
take up on the return trip had to be deadheaded out to
Jupiter.
A year of living in the station on Jupiter V without any