through the Top.
He himself never went down to the Middle, which was passenger territory. There was nothing there he wanted. He
was too busy, had too many worthwhile things to do, to waste time that way . . . but the hunch was getting stronger
and stronger all the time. For, the first time in all his three years of deep-space service he felt an overpowering
urge to go down into the very middle of the Middle; to the starship’s main lounge.
He knew that his hunches were infallible. At cards” dice, or wheels he had always had hunches and he had always
won. That was why he had stopped gambling, years before, before anybody found out. He was that kind of a man.
Apart from the matter of unearned increment, however, he always followed his hunches; but this one he did not like
at all. He had been resisting it for hours, because he had never visited the lounge and did not want to visit it now.
But something down there was pulling like a tractor, so he went. He didn’t go to his cabin; didn’t even take off his
side-arm. He didn’t even think of it; the .41 automatic at his hip was as much a part of his uniform as his pants.
Entering the lounge, he did not have to look around.
She was playing bridge, and as eyes met eyes and she rose to her feet a shock-wave swept through him that made
him feel as though his every hair was standing straight on end.
“Excuse me, please,” she said to the other three at her table. “I must go now.” She tossed her cards down onto the
table and walked straight toward him; eyes still holding eyes.-
He backed hastily out into the corridor, and as the door closed behind her they went naturally and wordlessly into
each other’s arms. Lips met lips in a kiss that lasted for a long, long time. It was not a passionate embrace-passion
would come later-it was as though each of them, after endless years of bootless” fruitless longing, bad come
finally home.
“Come with me, dear, where we can talk,” she said” finally; eyeing with disfavor the half-dozen highly interested
spectators.
And a couple of minutes later” in cabin two hundred eighty-one, Deston said: “So this is why I had to come down
into passenger territory. You came aboard at exactly zero seven forty-three.”
“Uh-uh.” She shook her yellow head. “A few minutes before that. That was when I read your name in the list of
officers on the board. First Officer” Carlyle Deston. I got a tingle that went from the tips of my toes up and out
through the very ends of my hair. Nothing like when we actually saw each other, of course. We both knew the truth,
then. It’s wonderful that you’re so strongly psychic” too.”
“I don’t know about that,” he said, thoughtfully. “All my training has been based on the axiomatic fact that the map is
not the territory. Psionics, as I understand it” holds that the map is-practically-the territory, but can’t prove it. So I
simply don’t know what to believe. On one hand, I have had real hunches all my life. On the other, the signal doesn’t
carry much information. More like hearing a siren when you’re driving along a street. You know you have to pull
over and stop, but that’s all you know. It could be police, fire, ambulance-anything. Anybody with any psionic ability
at all ought to do a lot better than that, I should think.”
“Not necessarily. You’ve been fighting it. Ninety-nine per cent of your mind doesn’t want to believe it; is dead set
against it. So it has to force its way through whillions and skillions of ohms of resistance, so only the most
powerful stimuli-‘maximum signal’ in your jargon, perhaps?-can get through to you at all.” Suddenly she giggled
like a schoolgirl. “You’re either psychic or the biggest wolf in the known universe, and I know you aren’t a wolf. If
you hadn’t been as psychic as I am, you’d’ve jumped clear out into subspace when a perfectly strange girl attacked
you.”
“How do you know so much about me?”
“I made it a point to. One of the junniors told me you’re the only virgin officer in all space.”
“That was Eddie Thompson.” “Uh-huh.” She nodded brightly. “Well, is that bad?”
“Anything else but. That is, he thought it was terrible outrageous-a betrayal of the whole officer caste-but to me it
makes everything just absolutely perfect.”
“Me, too. How soon can we get married?”
“I’d say right now, except. . . .” She caught her lower lip between her teeth and thought. “No, no ‘except.’ Right now,
or as soon as you can. You can’t, without resigning” can you? They’d fire you?”
“Don’t worry about that,” he grinned. “My record is good enough, I think, to get a good ground job. Even if they fire
me for not waiting until we ground” there’s lots of jobs. I can support you, sweetheart.”
“Oh, I know you can. I wasn’t thinking of that. You wouldn’t like a ground job.”
“What difference does that make?” he asked, in honest surprise. “A man grows up. I couldn’t have you with me in
space” and I’d like that a lot less. No. I’m done with space” as of now. But what was that ‘except’ business?”
“I thought at first I’d tell my parents first-they’re both aboard-but I decided not to. She’d scream bloody murder and
he’d roar like a lion and none of it would make me change my mind” so we’ll get married first.”
He looked at her questioningly; she shrugged and went on. “We aren’t what you’d call a happy family. She’s been
trying to make me marry an old goat of a prince and I finally told her to go roll her hoop-to get a divorce and marry
the foul old beast herself. And to consolidate two empires, he’s been wanting me to marry a multibillionaire-who is
also a louse and a crumb and a heel. Last week he insisted on it and I blew up like an atomic bomb. I told him if I
got married a thousand times I’d pick every one of my husbands myself, without the least bit of help from either
him or her. I’d keep on finding oil and stuff for him, I said, but that was all. . . .”
“Oil!” Deston exclaimed, involuntarily, as everything fell into place in his mind. The way she walked; poetry in
motion . . . the oil-witch . . . two empires . . . more millions than he had dimes. . . . “Oh” you’re Barbara Warner”
then.”
“Why, of course; but my friends call me ‘Bobby.’ Didn’t you-but of course you didn’t-you never read passenger
lists. If you did, you’d’ve got a tingle, too.”
“I got plenty of tingle without reading, believe me. However, I never expected to-”
“Don’t say it, dear!” She got up and took both his hands in hers. “I know how you feel. I don’t like to let you ruin
your career, either, but nothing can separate us” now that we’ve found each other. So I’ll tell you this.” Her eyes
looked steadily into his. “If it bothers you the least bit, later on, I’ll give every dollar I own to some foundation or
other, I swear it.”
He laughed shamefacedly as he took her in his arms. “Since that’s the way you look at it, it won’t bother me a bit.”
“Uh-huh, you do mean it.” She snuggled her head down into the curve of his neck. “I can tell.”
“I know you can, sweetheart.” Then he had another thought, and with strong, deft fingers he explored the muscles of
her arms and back. “But those acrobatics in plus gee-and you’re trained down as hard and fine as I am, and it’s my
business to be-how come?”
“I majored in Physical Education and I love it. And I’m a Newmartian, you know, so I teach a few courses-”
“Newmartian? I’ve heard-but you aren’t a colonial; you’re as Terran as I am.”
“By blood, yes; but I was born on Newmars. Our actual and legal residence has always been there. The tax situation,
you know.”
“I don’t know, no. Taxes don’t bother me much. But go ahead. You teach a few courses. In?”
“Oh, bars, trapeze, ground-and-lofty tumbling, aerobatics, aerialistics, high-wire, muscle-control, judo-all that kind
of thing.”
“Ouch! So if you ever happen to accidentally get mad at me you’ll tie me right up into a pretzel?”
“I doubt it; very seriously. I’ve tossed lots of two hundred-pounders around, of course, but they were not space
officers.” She laughed unaffectedly as she tested his musculature much more professionally and much more
thoroughly than he had tested hers. “Definitely I couldn’t. A good big man can always take a good little one, you
know.”
“But I’m not big; I’m just a little squirt. You’ve probably heard what they call me?”