d pleasantly
easier."

I grunted. "And so you were made happy."

"Yes," she whispered. "And I was going to marry you and live honestly
with you--"

"Heck of a marriage with the wife in the Medical Center for Mekstrom's
Disease and our first child--"

"Steve, you poor fool, don't you understand? If our child came as
predicted, the first thing I'd do would be to have the child inoculate
the father? Then we'd be--"

"Um," I grunted. "I hadn't thought of that." This was a flat lie. I'd
considered it a-plenty since my jailing here. Present the Medical Center
with a child, a Mekstrom, and a Carrier, and good old pappy would be no
longer needed.

"Well, after I found out all about you, Steve, that's what I had in
mind. But now--"

"Now what?" I urged her gently. I had a hunch that she was leading up to
something, but ducking shy about it until she managed to find out how I
thought. It would have been all zero if we'd been in a clear area, but
as it was I led her gently on.

"But now I've failed," she said with a slight wail.

"What do they do with failures?" I asked harshly. "Siberia? Or a gunny
sack weighted down with an anvil? Or do they drum you out of the corps?"

"I don't know."

I eyed her closely. I was forced to admit that no matter how Catherine
thought, she was a mighty attractive dish from the physical standpoint.
And regardless of the trouble she'd put me through, I could not overlook
the fact that I had been deep enough in love to plan elopement and
marriage. I'd held her slender body close, and either her response had
been honestly warm or Catherine was an actress of very rare physical
ability. Scholar Phelps could hardly have picked a warmer temptress in
the first place; putting her onto me now was a stroke of near-genius.

I got up from the edge of my bunk and faced her through my bars. She
came close, too, and we looked into each other's faces over a cross-rail
of the heavy fence.

I managed a wistful grin at her. "You're not really a failure yet, are
you, kid?"

"I don't quite know how to--to--" she replied.

I looked around my little cell with a gruesome gesture. "This isn't my
idea of a pleasant home. And yet it will be my home until someone
decides that I'm too expensive to keep."

"I know," she breathed.

Taking the bit in my teeth, I said, "Catherine even though--well, heck.
I'd like to help you."

"You mean that?" she asked in almost an eager voice.

"It's not impossible to fo