"Why, I--"
"Nuts," he snapped. "I'm not asking you for an explanation."
"Then why put it that way?"
"That's the point," he said. "I don't know. Something's all wrong
inside."
"How?"
"Napoleon. Andrews. Frankly, I hate his damn guts. I've always hated
the guts of that kind of moneybags. He walks all over everybody, buying
what he can't control. Darned near theft, if you ask me."
"So?"
"Aw, hell! The little character has got something. I want to know what."
"Now it's him?"
Norton nodded. "Something about Andrews. I don't know. I don't know how
or what or why, but there's something about him."
Alice eyed the pilot strangely. "Good or bad?" she asked cautiously.
"Both."
"Jock Norton," she asked quietly, "you've never had to work hard to get
what you wanted, have you?"
He stared down at his fingernails. "Maybe that's because I never wanted
anything of real value."
"Maybe," she agreed. "But what have you wanted?"
"Damned little out of life," he answered her truthfully. "Fun and
games, mostly."
"And I suppose they came easy?"
He nodded. "Being a space pilot has--well, a certain egoboo. You
find yourself invited here and there by people who have never been
any farther out of New York than Hackensack, or maybe no farther out
of Chicago than Evanston." He looked down at his fingernails again.
"There's always women happy to claim they've slept with a man who has
been to Castor, or Pollux, or Polaris, or even Centauri. A man gets his
bed and breakfast and his fun. But--" Abashed, he let it trail off.
"So what about Mr. Andrews?" she prompted.
"He's been there, too. But his--well, somehow I think--"
Alice smiled quietly. "In other words, Mr. Andrews' spacing is only a
means to his own advantage instead of being the end itself?"
"I guess that's what I mean. Andrews doesn't use spacing as his
business. He uses it to get to his business."
"That's right."
"So where do I go from here?"
"That's your decision."
"I know. And I wish I knew how to make it."
* * * * *