ap.

The something on his mind was still bothering him.

"Hello, darling!" He awoke to find his wife was home. She kissed him on
the ear. "Look."

She had bought an A. E. Sexitizer-negligee. He was pleasantly surprised
that that was all she had bought. Usually, Leela returned from shopping
laden down.

"It's lovely," he said.

She bent over for a kiss, then giggled--a habit he knew she had picked
up from the latest popular solido star. He wished she hadn't.

"Going to dial supper," she said, and went to the kitchen. Carrin
smiled, thinking that soon she would be able to dial the meals without
moving out of the living room. He settled back in his chair, and his son
walked in.

"How's it going, Son?" he asked heartily.

"All right," Billy answered listlessly.

"What'sa matter, Son?" The boy stared at his feet, not answering. "Come
on, tell Dad what's the trouble."

Billy sat down on a packing case and put his chin in his hands. He
looked thoughtfully at his father.

"Dad, could I be a Master Repairman if I wanted to be?"

Mr. Carrin smiled at the question. Billy alternated between wanting to
be a Master Repairman and a rocket pilot. The repairmen were the elite.
It was their job to fix the automatic repair machines. The repair
machines could fix just about anything, but you couldn't have a machine
fix the machine that fixed the machine. That was where the Master
Repairmen came in.

But it was a highly competitive field and only a very few of the best
brains were able to get their degrees. And, although the boy was bright,
he didn't seem to have an engineering bent.

"It's possible, Son. Anything is possible."

"But is it possible for me?"

"I don't know," Carrin answered, as honestly as he could.

"Well, I don't want to be a Master Repairman anyway," the boy said,
seeing that the answer was no. "I want to be a space pilot."

"A space pilot, Billy?" Leela asked, coming in to the room. "But there
aren't any."

"Yes, there are," Billy argued. "We were told in school that the
government is going to send some men to Mars."

"They've been saying that for a hundred years," Carrin said, "and they
still haven't gotten around to doing it."

"They will this time."

"Why would you want to go to Mars?" Leela asked, winking at Carrin.
"There are no pretty girls on Mars."

"I'm not interested in girls. I just want to go to Mars."

"You wouldn't like it, honey," Leela said. "It's a nasty old place with
no