e fences toward the Hauptman farmhouse, five
hundred yards or so from the farm road. The fields on his left belonged
to Marie's father, he knew. He was getting close--close to home and
woman and child.

He dropped the bag suddenly and leaned against a fence post, rolling his
head on his forearms and choking in spasms of air. He was shaking all
over, and his belly writhed. He wanted to turn and run. He wanted to
crawl out in the grass and hide.

What were they going to say? And Marie, Marie most of all. How was he
going to tell her about the money?

Six hitches in space, and every time the promise had been the same: _One
more tour, baby, and we'll have enough dough, and then I'll quit for
good. One more time, and we'll have our stake--enough to open a little
business, or buy a house with a mortgage and get a job._

And she had waited, but the money had never been quite enough until this
time. This time the tour had lasted nine months, and he had signed on
for every run from station to moon-base to pick up the bonuses. And this
time he'd made it. Two weeks ago, there had been forty-eight hundred in
the bank. And now ...

"_Why?_" he groaned, striking his forehead against his forearms. His arm
slipped, and his head hit the top of the fencepost, and the pain blinded
him for a moment. He staggered back into the road with a low roar, wiped
blood from his forehead, and savagely kicked his bag.

It rolled a couple of yards up the road. He leaped after it and kicked
it again. When he had finished with it, he stood panting and angry, but
feeling better. He shouldered the bag and hiked on toward the farmhouse.

They're hoofers, that's all--just an Earth-chained bunch of hoofers,
even Marie. And I'm a tumbler. A born tumbler. Know what that means? It
means--God, what does it mean? It means out in Big Bottomless, where
Earth's like a fat moon with fuzzy mold growing on it. Mold, that's all
you are, just mold.

A dog barked, and he wondered if he had been muttering aloud. He came to
a fence-gap and paused in the darkness. The road wound around and came
up the hill in front of the house. Maybe they were sitting on the porch.
Maybe they'd already heard him coming. Maybe ...

He was trembling again. He fished the fifth of gin out of his coat
pocket and sloshed it. Still over half a pint. He decided to kill it. It
wouldn't do to go home with a bottle sticking out of his pocket. He
stood there in the night wind, sipping at it, a