n."

* * * * *

Ekstrohm lay in his bunk and thought, the camp is quiet.

The Earthmen made camp outside the spaceship. There was no reason to
leave the comfortable quarters inside the ship, except that, faced with
a possibility of sleeping on solid ground, they simply had to get out.

The camp was a cluster of aluminum bubbles, ringed with a spy web to
alert the Earthmen to the approach of any being.

Each man had a bubble to himself, privacy after the long period of
enforced intimacy on board the ship.

Ekstrohm lay in his bunk and listened to the sounds of the night on
Yancy-6 138. There was a keening of wind, and a cracking of the frozen
ground. Insects there were on the world, but they were frozen solid
during the night, only to revive and thaw in the morning sun.

The bunk he lay on was much more uncomfortable than the acceleration
couches on board. Yet he knew the others were sleeping more soundly, now
that they had renewed their contact with the matter that had birthed
them to send them riding high vacuum.

Ekstrohm was not asleep.

Now there could be an end to pretending.

He threw off the light blanket and swung his feet off the bunk, to the
floor. Ekstrohm stood up.

There was no longer any need to hide. But what was there to do? What had
changed for him?

He no longer had to lie in his bunk all night, his eyes closed,
pretending to sleep. In privacy he could walk around, leave the light
on, read.

It was small comfort for insomnia.

Ekstrohm never slept. Some doctors had informed him he was mistaken
about this. Actually, they said, he did sleep, but so shortly and
fitfully that he forgot. Others admitted he was absolutely correct--he
_never_ slept. His body processes only slowed down enough for him to
dispel fatigue poisons. Occasionally he fell into a waking, gritty-eyed
stupor; but he never slept.

Never at all.

Naturally, he couldn't let his shipmates know this. Insomnia would
ground him from the Exploration Service, on physiological if not
psychological grounds. He had to hide it.

* * * * *

Over the years, he had had buddies in space in whom he thought he could
confide. The buddies invariably took advantage of him. Since he couldn't
sleep anyway, he might as well stand their watches for them or write
their reports. Where the hell did he get off threatening to report any
laxness on their part to the captain? A man wit