And on Earth, Bill Cross was really hitting his stride.

“Look at me,” he said, pointing a wavering finger at his chest. I’ve spent years trying to make rockets do something useful, and they tell me I’m only allowed to build guided missiles, so that we can all blow each other up. The sun will make a neater job of it, and if you did give us another planet we’d only start the whole damn thing all over again.”

He paused sadly, marshalling his morbid thoughts.

“And now Brenda heads out of town without even leaving a note. So you’ll pardon my lack of enthusiasm for your Boy Scout act.”

He couldn’t have said “enthusiasm” aloud, Bill realized. But he could still think it, which was an interesting scientific discovery. As he got drunker and drunker, would his cogitation—whoops, that nearly threw him!—finally drop down to words of one syllable?

In a final despairing exertion, the Thaams sent their thoughts along the tunnel between the stars.

“You can’t really mean it, Bill! Are all human beings like you?”

Now that was an interesting philosophical question! Bill considered it carefully—or as carefully as he could in view of the warm, rosy glow that was now beginning to envelop him. After all, things might be worse. He could get another job, if only for the pleasure of telling General Porter what he could do with his three stars. And as for Brenda—well, women were like streetcars: there’d always be another along in a minute.

Best of all, there was a second bottle of whisky in the Top Secret file. Oh, frabjous day! He rose unsteadily to his feet and wavered across the room.