en.
They're more interesting than their parents, for the most part, and
nobody ever seems to pay much attention to them."

"But do you have to work at night, too? When you disappear in the middle
of the evening, everybody misses you. The men all watch for you to come
back, their wives sigh with relief, and old man Jasperson toddles around
and searches the dance floor and bleats, 'Where's Miss Tanya? She was
here just a little while ago, and now I can't find her anywhere!'"

"I know. But one dance an evening with him is about all I can stand. I
don't really like the man."

"But why? He's a little stupid, but he seems a harmless sort of duck. In
a financial deal, of course, I can see that he'd be sharp and
ruthless--that's how men like him become millionaires--but he can't
knife anybody on shipboard."

Tanya slashed a heavy black line across her drawing, bearing down so
hard that she broke the chalk, and threw the pieces to the floor.

"He's a coward! Haven't you ever noticed the way he bullies the waiters?
How he patronizes Professor Larrabee, and ignores the young Halls? And
to hear him tell it, you'd think only his advice makes it possible for
Captain Evans to run the ship! I'm afraid of men like that. They're
cowardly and boastful, and in a crisis they are dangerous!"

"What an outburst over a fat little bald-headed man! Aren't you letting
your dramatic sense run away with you?"

Laughing, Tanya picked up her chalk and resumed sketching. "Probably,
but after all, I earn my living with my imagination."

"Then you aren't just a rich young woman dabbling in the theater?"

"No indeed. If you could see my bank account! No, I'm going to Almazin
III to make authentic sketches of the landscape. We may do a show set in
that locale, next year."

"I wish I could see some of the shows you stage."

"When we get home, I'll send you a pass."

He did not answer. Suddenly the melancholy Venusian scene she was
creating depressed him, as if it had been a reflection of his own barren
life.

"Or don't you like the theater, Dr. Chase?"

"It's not that," he said hastily. "Only--" He shrugged his shoulders.
"Something about this ship, I suppose. Home seems so very far away."

"Have you felt that too? I've had the feeling, sometimes, that earth
isn't there any more, and that this ship is the only reality."

* * * * *

By the end of the third week out, Burl Jasperson was afflicted by an
almos