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“Excuse me. Perhaps she’s ill.”

Not ilclass="underline" just sulking. He found her in the room, face down on the bed. When he put his hand on her bare back, she shivered and rolled away from him. He could not say anything to her. They slept far apart, and when his dream of Manipool came to him, he managed to choke off his screams before they began, and sat up, rigid, until the terror passed.

Neither of them mentioned the episode in the morning.

They went sight-seeing, via power-sled. Titan’s hotel-and-spaceport complex lay near the center of a smallish plateau bordered by immense mountains. Here, as on Luna, peaks that dwarfed Everest were plentiful. It seemed incongruous that such small worlds would have such great ranges, but so it was. A hundred miles or so to the west of the hotel was Martinelli Glacier, a vast creeping river of ice coiling for hundreds of miles down out of the heart of the local Himalayas. The glacier terminated, improbably enough, in the galaxy-famed Frozen Waterfall. Which every visitor to Titan was obliged to visit, and which Burris and Lona visited, too.

There were lesser sights en route that Burris found more deeply stirring. The swirling methane clouds and tufts of frozen ammonia ornamenting the naked mountains, for example, giving them the look of mountains in a Sung scroll. Or the dark lake of methane half an hour’s drive from the dome. In its waxen depths dwelled the small, durable living things of Titan, creatures that were more or less mollusks and arthropods, but rather less than more. They were equipped for breathing and drinking methane. With life of any sort as scarce as it was in this solar system, Burris found it fascinating to view these rarities in their native habitat. Around the rim of the lake he saw their food: Titanweeds, ropy greasy plants, dead white in color, capable of enduring this hellish climate in perfect comfort.

The sled rolled on toward the Frozen Waterfall.

There it was: blue-white, glinting in Saturnlight, suspended over an enormous void. The beholders made the obligatory sighs and gasps. No one left the sled, for the winds were savage out there, and the breathing-suits could not be entirely trusted to protect one against the corrosive atmosphere.

They circled the waterfall, viewing the sparkling arch of ice from three sides. Then came the bad news from their cicerone: “Storm coming up. We’re heading back.”

The storm came, long before they reached the comfort of the dome. First there was rain, a sleety downpour of precipitated ammonia that rattled on the roof of their sled, and then clouds of ammonia-crystal snow, driven by the wind. The sled pushed on with difficulty. Burris had never seen snow come down so heavily or so fast. The wind churned and uprooted it, piling it into cathedrals and forests. Straining a little, the power-sled avoided new dunes and nosed around sudden barricades. Most of the passengers looked imperturbable. They exclaimed on the beauty of the storm. Burris, who knew how close they all were to entombment, sat moodily in silence. Death might bring peace at last, but if he could choose his death he did not mean to choose being buried alive. Already he could taste the acrid foulness as the air began to give out and the whining motors fed their exhaust back into the passenger compartment. Imagination, nothing more. He tried to enjoy the beauty of the storm.

Nevertheless, it was a source of great relief to enter the warmth and safety of the dome once again.

He and Lona quarreled again soon after their return. There was even less reason for this quarrel than for any of the others. But very swiftly it reached a level of real malevolence.

“You didn’t look at me the whole trip, Minner!”

“I looked at the scenery. That’s why we’re here.”

“You could take my hand. You could smile.”

“I—”

“Am I that boring?”

He was weary of retreating. “As a matter of fact, you are! You’re a dull, dreary, ignorant little girl! All this is wasted on you! Everything! You can’t appreciate food, clothing, sex, travel…”

“And what are you? Just a hideous freak!”

“That makes two of us.”

“Am I a freak?” she shrilled. “It doesn’t show. I’m a human being, at least. What are you?”

That was when he sprang at her.

His smooth fingers closed around her throat. She battered at him, pounded him with her fists, clawed his cheeks with raking nails. But she could not break his skin, and that roused her to smoldering fury. He gripped her firmly, shaking her, making her head roll wildly on its mooring, and all the while she kicked and punched. Through his arteries surged all the byproducts of rage.

I could kill her so easily, he thought.

But the very act of pausing to let a coherent concept roll through his mind calmed him. He released her. He stared at his hands, she at him. There were mottled marks on her throat that nearly matched the blotches newly sprung out on his face. Gasping, she stepped away from him. She did not speak. Her hand, shaking, pointed at him.

Fatigue clubbed him to his knees.

All his strength vanished at once. His joints gave way, and he slipped, melting, unable even to brace himself with his hands. He lay prone, calling her name. He had never felt this weak before, not even while he had been recuperating from what had been done to him on Manipool.

This is what it’s like to be bled white, he told himself. The leeches have been at me! God, will I ever be able to stand again? “Help!” he cried soundlessly. “Lona, where are you?”

When he was strong enough to lift his head, he discovered that she was gone. He did not know how much time had passed. Weakly he pulled himself up inch by inch and sat on the edge of the bed until the worst of the feebleness was over. Was it a judgment upon him for striking her? Each time they had quarreled he had felt this sickness come upon him.

“Lona?”

He went into the hall, staying close to the side partition. Probably he looked drunk to the well-groomed women who sailed past him. They smiled. He tried to return the smiles.

He did not find her.

Somehow, hours later, he discovered Aoudad. The little man looked apprehensive.

“Have you seen her?” Burris croaked.

“Halfway to Ganymede by now. She left on the dinner flight.”

“Left?”

Aoudad nodded. “Nick went with her. They’re going back to Earth. What did you do—slam her around some?”

“You let her go?” Burris muttered. “You permitted her to walk out? What’s Chalk going to say about that?”

“Chalk knows. Don’t you think we checked with him first? He said, sure, if she wants to come home, let her come home. Put her on the next ship out. So we did. Hey, you look pale, Burris. I thought with your skin you couldn’t get pale!”

“When does the next ship after hers leave?”

“Tomorrow night. You aren’t going to go chasing her, are you?”

“What else?”

Grinning, Aoudad said, “You’ll never get anywhere that way. Let her go. This place is full of women who’d be glad to take her place. You’d be amazed how many. Some of them know I’m with you, and they come up to me, wanting me to fix you up with them. It’s the face, Minner. The face fascinates them.”

Burris turned away from him.

Aoudad said, “You’re shaken up. Listen, let’s go have a drink!”

Without looking back, Burris replied, “I’m tired. I want to rest.”

“Should I send one of the women to you after a while?”

“Is that your idea of rest?”

“Well, matter of fact, yes.” He laughed pleasantly. “I don’t mind taking care of them myself, you understand, but it’s you they want. You.”

“Can I call Ganymede? Maybe I can talk to her while her ship’s refueling.”

Aoudad caught up with him. “She’s gone, Burris. You ought to forget her now. What did she have besides problems? Just a skinny little kid! You didn’t even get along well with her. I know. I saw. All you did was shout at each other. What do you need her for? Now, let me tell you about—”