"We couldn't take the chance." MacKenzie was trying desperately to
explain. "You were the best there was--but you'd done something to
yourself by becoming the best. You shut yourself off from your family.
You had no close friends, no women. You had no other interests. You were
a rocket pilot--nothing else. You've never read an adult book that
wasn't a text; you've never listened to a symphony except by accident.
You don't know Rembrandt from Norman Rockwell. Nothing. No ties, no
props, nothing to sustain you if something went wrong. _We couldn't take
the chance, Ish!_"
"So?"
"There was too much at stake. If we let you go, you might have
forgotten to come back. You might have just kept going."