“No, I won’t stop it. There’s death all over this world, we’ll die here. This isn’t why I married you…not for this…not out here!”

“There isn’t ‘death all over this world’; stop being so damned melodramatic. That thing I burned, it probably hunts these little ones, it’s a natural thing. They probably have a way of escaping most of the time, but the mollok was drawn to the machinery vibration the same as they were, and they were…I don’t know…something like lulled, hypnotized, involved with vibration…and the thing was able to catch them. That’s the natural order, no more ‘death all over this world’ than it would be for a lion to bring down a gazelle on Earth.”

She stared at him. “I’m going to leave you, Bob.”

He turned away, looking up into the cold hard sky. When he spoke, he smiled. They had agreed on what that smile meant. There was that between them at least. Only…she had said—“Leaving?”

“Margret, we’re here for another sixteen months. The ship doesn’t swing back for pickup for another sixteen months. Now just how in the hell do you plan on leaving me?”

“When we get away from here.”

“Don’t talk stupid.”

“I mean it, Bob. I can’t stand this kind of life.”

“You knew what it would be like when you married me.”

“You never said we’d be in a place like out here.”

“I have to take the assignment I get, Margret.”

“I want a divorce.”

“Okay, okay dammit, you’ll get it, when we get off here.”

“I consider myself divorced right now.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Don’t come near me, Bob. I’ll do what I have to do to keep the situation workable, but don’t try to touch me.”

“Bed.”

“Don’t touch me, Bob. Not as long as you do this thing to me, and keep me out here.”

“Oh, for God’s—” he began, thinking he would never want to touch her again anyway.