I shut off the projector. I had no interest in astrogation at the
moment. "Is that why you avoid me?"
"I don't avoid you."
"You always find time to horse around with Morrie," I said.
Now she smiled. "Are you by any chance jealous?" she asked. "If you
are, you have no right."
"Damnit, I'm not. I just want equal time," I said. "I should have the
right to want as much time with my legal wife as those other bums."
"I'm doing the laundry with you," she said teasingly. "That's the first
time I've done that with anybody on this ship."
"I'm in your debt, gracious lady," I said. There was a trace of
sarcasm, less than I felt, in my voice.
She heard it, too, and gave me a sharp glance. "I do want to talk to
you about something, Bill Drake," she said.
"Sure. The laundry doesn't need attention. Let's talk."
"You've noticed that we're not the jolly little group we started out to
be when we first boarded the ship, haven't you?"
"Yes, but it's because we're getting bored. We've been going around the
earth in a spiral, like a merry-go-round. We don't seem to be getting
anyplace."
"That's not what I mean," she said. "We are getting someplace. The
spiral widens a little more each turn. Very soon now--perhaps within
hours--we'll break away from the earth. We all realize it. And the
farther away from earth we go, the less we'll feel bound by standards
of the earth."