I didn’t have anything left to do now but think. So I thought about
Jeff—how there seemed to be one Jeff who hated my guts and another Jeff
who idolized me and another Jeff sneaking around in a jungle of
sabertooth tigers and ... heck, there was probably a good twenty Jeffs
sitting around inside his skull, some in light, some in darkness, but
all of them watching each other and arguing together all the time. It
was an odd way to think of a personality—a sort of perpetual
_Kaffeeklatsch_—but it had its points. Maybe some of the little guys
weren’t Jeffs at all, but his father and mother and a caveman ancestor
or two and maybe some great-great-grandchild butting in now and then
from the future....
Well, I saw that speculation was getting out of hand so, taking a tip
from Jeff, I began to count my own sins.
It took quite a while. Some of them were pretty interesting reading,
almost enough to take my mind off my predicament, but I tired of it
finally.
Then I began to count the stars.
It was really the longest two hours plus I ever spent, except maybe the
time my first big girl disappeared. But I don’t know. The experiences
are hard to compare.
I was about halfway through the stars when I went weightless. For an
awful instant I thought the line had parted at last, but then I looked
toward the ship and saw the bright little moon was gone.
* * * * *
Right away I gave a couple of tugs on the line and began to close slowly
with the tail. No trouble at all—actually my only difficulty was
resisting the temptation to build up more momentum, which would have
resulted in a crash landing.
I softed-in on Trompled Love okay, except there was a big spark. The
beam must have charged me good. Then I worked my way to the true hull.
After that there were handholds.
Finally I got to a porthole in the living quarters, and I looked in, and
there was Jeff jawing away at my empty seat. I put my helmet against the
hull and very faintly I heard him say, “Joseph, I’m still worried about
the enemy. I keep thinking I hear him or it. I’m going to make us some
coffee, so we’ll stay real alert. You break out the guns.”
I don’t suppose anyone ever moved quite so quietly _and_ so quickly in a
spacesuit as I did then. I got in the airlock, I got her up to pressure,
I got unsuited—and all in less than five minutes, I’m sure. Maybe less
than four.
I swam to the cabin. It was empty. I slid into my seat just as Jeff
floated in with the coffee.
He went real pale when he spotted me. I saw there might be some trouble
this time with the Joseph-Joe transition. But I knew the only way to
play it was real cool. I nested there in my seat as if I hadn’t a worry
or urge in the world—though my nerves and throat were just screaming for
a squirt of that coffee.
“Joe!” he squeaked at last. “Migod, you gave me an awful scare. I
thought you’d done a bunk, I thought, you’d spaced yourself, I kept
picturing you outside the ship.”
“Why no, Jeff,” I answered quietly. “One way or another, I’ve been in
this seat ever since take-off.”
His brow wrinkled as he thought about that.
I looked at the board and noticed that our terminal trip-velocity read
fifteen miles a second. My, my.
Finally Jeff said, “That’s right, you have.” And then, just a shade
unhappily, “I might have known. You always tell the truth, Joe—you’re
perfect.”