Helmuth realized suddenly that there was nothing left 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 resignation. 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 arranged 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.