She looked at him from the side of her eyes and said, “Are you sure you can honestly eliminate yourself?”

He squeezed her. “Absolutely.”

She sighed, still in his arms. “However, I’ll be glad when we reach Genoa, and this restriction will be off.”

“Genoa?” He pushed her back to arm length and scowled down into her face.

“Why, yes, when we land and take up our work. Certainly, Amschel Mayer can have no objection then to our openly becoming married. I…I wonder what ceremony they have. You know, when I was a student, sometimes thinking of marriage, I…”

“Genoa! But we’re going to Texcoco.”

Her eyes widened and there was quick apprehension in them.

“But Barry. I’m going to Genoa, with Mayer’s team. I…why, I automatically thought you were as well. Everybody had a free choice. Surely, you couldn’t have chosen Plekhanov’s theories. Why…

He took his hands from her completely, and tugged at his right ear in irritated distress.

“I was kind of pressured. I’m an authority on early military history. Leonid Plekhanov was of the opinion that I’d be more useful on Texcoco.”

“Barry!” her voice was distressed now. “You could change. You could tell them you’d rather work on Genoa.”

“Giving what excuse at this late date? The real one? The fact that you and I have broken ship’s regulations and fallen in love?”

She looked at him in misery.

“Besides,” he said angrily, “who’d change positions with me? Genoa is the preferred planet. It’s more advanced. The life’ll be easier. It’d be easier for you to change. Isobel’s scheduled for Texcoco, but I have a sneaking suspicion that in spite of her supposed attraction to Plekhanov, she’d jump at the chance to switch to the Genoa team.”

Her eyes dropped and she shook her head, and then shook it again, more strongly. “I couldn’t, Barry, I couldn’t work with that man. I’m afraid of him. All my intuition tells me that horrible things are going to happen on Texcoco, when Plekhanov and Joe Chessman land there with all the weapon resources of the Pedagogue behind them.”