g lady who graced the side of
the cockpit. "Wish us luck, sugar." He pressed the mike button again.

"You got anything yet, Johnny?"

"He's going our way, Paul. Have it exact in a minute."

Coulter scanned the full arch of sky visible through the curving panels
of the dome, thinking the turgid thoughts that always came when action
was near. His chest was full of the familiar weakness--not fear exactly,
but a tight, helpless feeling that grew and grew with the waiting.

His eyes and hands were busy in the familiar procedure, readying the
ship for combat, checking and re-checking the details that could mean
life and death, but his mind watched disembodied, yearning back to
earth.

Sylvia always came back first. Inviting smile and outstretched hands.
Nyloned knees, pink sweater, and that clinging, clinging white silk
skirt. A whirling montage of laughing, challenging eyes and tossing
sky-black hair and soft arms tightening around his neck.

Then Jean, cool and self-possessed and slightly disapproving, with
warmth and humor peeping through from underneath when she smiled. A
lazy, crinkly kind of smile, like Christmas lights going on one by one.
He wished he'd acted more grown up that night they watched the rain
dance at the pueblo. For the hundredth time, he went over what he
remembered of their last date, seeing the gleam of her shoulder, and the
angry disappointment in her eyes; hearing again his awkward apologies.
She was a nice kid. Silently his mouth formed the words. "You're a nice
kid."

_I think she loves me. She was just mad because I got drunk._

The tension of approaching combat suddenly blended with the memory,
welling up into a rush of tenderness and affection. He whispered her
name, and suddenly he knew that if he got back he was going to ask her
to marry him.

He thought of his father, rocking on the porch of the Pennsylvania farm,
pipe in his mouth, the weathered old face serene, as he puffed and
listened to the radio beside him. He wished he'd written him last night,
instead of joining the usual beer and bull session in the wardroom. He
wished--. He wished.

"I've got him, Paul. He's got two point seven miles of RV on us. Take
thirty degrees high on two point one o'clock for course to IP."

* * * * *

Automatically he turned the control wheel to the right and eased it
back. The gyros recorded the turn to course.

"Hold 4 G's for one six five seconds, then coast