o the cabin, crossed over to his station, and began
opening and closing drawers. "They've moved." From the bottom drawer he
pulled out a folded chessboard and a rectangular box. Only then did he
look directly at them. "The food's gone."

"Food?... gone where?"

Hoskins smiled tiredly. "Where's the port? Where's the outboard
bulkhead? That black stuff has covered it up--heating units,
foodlockers, disposal unit, everything." He pulled a couple of chairs
from their clips on the bulkhead and carried them across the cabin to
the sheet of blackness. "There's water," he said as he unfolded the
chairs. On the seat of one he placed the chessboard. He sat on the other
and pushed the board close to the darkness. "The scuttlebutt's inboard,
and still available." His voice seemed to get fainter and fainter as he
talked, as if he were going slowly away from them. "But there's no food.
No food."

He began to set up the pieces, his face to the black wall.

IV

_The primary function of personality is self-preservation, but
personality itself is not a static but a dynamic thing. The
basic factor in its development, is integration: each new
situation calls forth a new adjustment which modifies or alters
the personality in the process. The proper aim of personality,
therefore, is not permanence and stability, but unification. The
inability of a personality to adjust to or integrate a new
situation, the resistance of the personality to unification, and
its efforts to preserve its integrity are known popularly as
insanity._
--Morgan Littlefield,
Notes on Psychology.

_"Hoskins!"_

Paresi grabbed the Captain's arm and spun him around roughly. "Captain
Anderson! Cut it!" Very softly, he said, "Leave him alone. He's doing
what he has to do."

Anderson stared over his shoulder at the little engineer. "Is he, now?
Damn it, he's still under orders!"

"Got something for him to do?" asked the doctor cooly.

Anderson looked around, at the controls, out at the sleeping mountains.
"I guess not. But I'd like to know he'd take an order when I have one."

"Leave him alone until you have an order. Hoskins is a very steady head,
skipper. But just now he's on the outside edge. Don't push."

The Captain put his hand over his eyes and fumbled his way to the
controls. He turned his back to the pilot's chair and leaned heavily
against it. "Okay," he said. "This