entirely-if she didn’t send the ball into the net by failing to surge power with her left hand on the rheostat. A half hour of the exercise seemed to do both of us good. She cheered up and ate her rations and I had mine. The tennis match before meals became a tradition. There was little enough to do in our cramped quarters. Every eight hours she would go for our tagged rations, I would grumble about the shortage and tampering, we’d have some tennis, and then eat. The rest of the time passed somehow, watching the ads come and go-all Schocken-on the walls. Well enough, I thought. Schocken’s on the Moon and I won’t be kept from him there. Things weren’t so crowded. Moon to Schocken to Kathy-a twinge of feeling. I could have asked casually what Hester had heard about Jack O’Shea, but I didn’t. I was afraid I might not like what she might have heard about the midget hero and his triumphal procession from city to city and woman to woman. A drab service announcement at last interrupted the parade of ads: COOKS TO THE GALLEY (the David Ricardo was a British ship) FOR FINAL LIQUID FEEDING. THIS IS H-8 AND NO FURTHER SOLID OR LIQUID FOOD SHOULD BE CONSUMED UNTIL TOUCHDOWN. Hester smiled and went out with our tray. As usual it was ten minutes before she returned. We were getting some minor course corrections, enough to unsettle my stomach. I burped miserably while waiting. She came back with two Coffiest bulbs and reproached me gaily: “Why, Mitch, you haven’t set up the tennis court!” “Didn’t feel like it. Let’s eat.” I put out my hand for my bulb. She didn’t give it to me. “Well?” “Just one set?” she coaxed. “Hell, girl, you heard me,” I snapped. “Let’s not forget who’s who around here.” I wouldn’t have said it if it hadn’t been Coffiest, I suppose. The Starrzelius-red bulb kicked things off in me-nagging ghosts of withdrawal symptoms. I’d been off the stuff for a long time, but you never kick Coffiest. She stiffened. “I’m sorry, Mr. Courtenay.” And then she clutched violently at her middle, her face distorted. Astounded, I grabbed her. She was deathly pale and limp; she moaned with pain. “Hester,” I said, “what is it? What-?” “Don’t drink it,” she croaked, her hand kneading her belly. “The
Coffiest. Poison. Your rations. I’ve been tasting them.” Her nails tore first the nylon of her midriff and then her skin as she clawed at the pain. “Send a doctor!” I was yelling into the compartment mike. “Woman’s dying here!” The chief steward’s voice answered me: “Right away, sir. Ship’s doctor’ll be there right away.” Hester’s contorted face began to relax, frightening me terribly. She said softly: “Bitch Kathy. Running out on you. Mitch and bitch. Funny. You’re too good for her. She wouldn’t have. My life. Yours.” There was another spasm across her face. “Wife versus secretary. A laugh. It always was a laugh. You never even kissed me-” I didn’t get a chance to. She was gone, and the ship’s doctor was hauling himself briskly in along the handline. His face fell. We towed her to the lazarette and he put her in a cardiac-node exciter that started her heart going again. Her chest began to rise and fall and she opened her eyes. “Where-are-you?” asked the doctor, loudly and clearly. She moved her head slightly, and a pulse of hope shot through me. “Response?” I whispered to the doctor. “Random,” he said with professional coldness. He was right. There were more slight head movements and a nervous flutter of the eyelids, which were working independently. He kept trying with questions. “Who-are-you?” brought a wrinkle between her eyes, and a tremor of the lip, but no more. Except for a minute, ambiguous residue, she was gone. Gently enough, the doctor began to explain to me: “I’m going to turn it off. You mustn’t think there’s any hope left. Evidently irreversible clinical death has occurred. It’s often hard for a person with emotional ties to believe-” I watched her eyelids flutter, one with a two-four beat, the other with a three-four beat. “Turn it off,” I said hoarsely. By “it” I meant Hester and not the machine. He cut the current and withdrew the needle. “There was nausea?” he asked. I nodded. “Her first space flight?” I nodded. “Abdominal pain?” I nodded. “No previous distress?” I shook my head. “History of vertigo?” I nodded, though I didn’t know. He was driving at something. He kept asking, and the answers he wanted were as obvious as a magician’s forced card. Allergies, easy bleeding, headaches, painful menses, afternoon fa-