Hutch sat unmoving, waiting for the lights to go out, waiting for Cal Hartlett to appear out on the street, wondering what she would do when he did. That she was here at all angered her. It was time to let go, but instead she was hanging around like a lovesick adolescent, hoping something would happen. Hoping he would change his mind when he saw her, as though everything they'd had would come rushing back. But if she didn't try, she would have to live with that knowledge, and she would always wonder.

She shrank down into the front seat, and drew the rain and the night around her.

He had first confessed his love to her in that office. She'd sat in as a systems technician for him one memorable evening, and they'd stayed until dawn.

How long ago all that seemed now. She had been between flights, and when it all ended everything had seemed possible. We'll find a way.

The glide train appeared in the distance, a string of bright lights against the general gloom. A few people hurrying across the lot broke into a run. It approached on a long slow curve, braked, and whispered into the station.

Cal was a financial analyst with the brokerage firm of Forman & Dyer. He enjoyed his work, loved to play with numbers, had been fascinated by her profession. My star pilot. He loved to listen to her descriptions of distant worlds, had extracted a promise that one day, somehow, she would take him along. At least, he'd smiled, to the Moon. He had gray eyes and brown hair and good laugh lines. And he loved her.

The lights in his office went out.

He lived eight blocks away. Cal was a fitness nut, and even in weather like this he would walk home.

The glide train pulled out, accelerated, and slipped into the storm.

The steady flow of people thinned to a handful. She watched the last of them, several waving down their rides, two breaking into a run toward the station.