And yet between the two of us she was as inept and unforgiving as ever I had been with Sylvia, or with Deena, Janice, Liz, Ester, or any of the other two-week romances that had all ended badly in all the years after Sylvia. It was, she said, because she was Sagitarius and I was a Gemini. Sagittarians were prophets. Sagittarians loved freedom. Us poor Geminis were just terribly mixed up and indecisive. "It's no wonder," she told me gravely one morning, eating breakfast in her room (I accepted no more than a couple of sips of coffee), "that you can't make your mind up to go out again. It isn't just physical cowardice, dear Robinette. Part of your twin nature wants to triumph. Part wants to fail. I wonder which side you will allow to win?"

I gave her an ambiguous answer. I said, "Honey, go screw yourself." And she laughed, and we got through that day. She had scored her point.

The Corporation made its expected announcement, and there was an immense flurry of conferring and planning and exchanging guesses and interpretations among all of us. It was an exciting time. Out of the master computer's files the Corporation pulled twenty launches with low danger factors and high profit expectancies. They were subscribed, equipped, and launched within a week.

And I wasn't on any of them, and neither was Klara; and we tried not to discuss why.

Surprisingly, Dane Metchnikov didn't go out on any of them. He knew something, or said he did. Or didn't say he didn't when I asked him, just looked at me in that glowering, contemptuous way and didn't answer. Even Shicky almost went out. He lost out in the last hour before launch to the Finnish boy who had never been able to find anyone to talk to; there were four Saudis who wanted to stay together, and settled for the Finnish kid to fill out a Five. Louise Forehand didn't go out, either, because she was waiting for some member of her family to come back, so as to preserve some sort of continuity. You could eat in the Corporation commissary now without waiting in line, and there were empty rooms all up and down my tunnel. And one night Klara said to me, "Rob, I think I'm going to go to a shrink."

I jumped. It was a surprise. Worse than that, a betrayal. Klara knew about my early psychotic episode and what I thought of psychotherapists.

I withheld the first dozen things I thought of to say to her -- tactical: "I'm glad; it's about time"; hypocritical: "I'm glad, and please tell me how I can help"; strategic: "I'm glad, and maybe I ought to go, too, if I could afford it." I refrained from the only truthful response, which would have been: "I interpret this move on your part as a condemnation of me for bending your head." I didn't say anything at all, and after a moment she went on: