His room served as a bedroom and he discovered that Maggie slept on a pneumatic cot in the kitchen. The third room, opening into the airlock, housed a small hydroponics garden, sunlamp, short-wave visi-radio, and such emergency equipment as oxygen tanks, windsuits, and vita-rations. It was here that Simple Simon remained most of the time, tending the garden or peering into the viewscreen that revealed the terrain outside the dome. Maggie prepared Ben's meals, bringing them to him on a tray until he was able to sit at a table. As his paralysis diminished, he helped her with cooking--with Simple Simon standing by as a mute, motionless observer. Occasionally Maggie would talk of her girlhood in a small town in Missouri and how she'd dreamed of journeying to the stars. "'Stars are for boys,' they'd tell me, but I was a queer one. While other gals were dressing for their junior proms, I'd be in sloppy slacks down at the spaceport with Jacob." She laughed often--perhaps in a deliberate attempt to disguise the omnipresent tension. And her laughter was like laughter on Earth, floating through comfortable houses and over green fields and through clear blue sky. When she laughed, she possessed a beauty. Despite her pale face and lack of makeup, Ben realized that she was no older than he. _If I'd only known her back on Earth_, he thought. _If I_--And then he told himself, _You've got enough problems. Don't create another one!_ Finally, except for a stiffness in his leg joints, he'd fully recovered. "How much time do I have?" he asked. "Before you decide?" "Yes." "Very little. Jacob's ship is on its way. It'll be here--well, you can't tell about these things. Two or three Earth days, maybe even tomorrow. It'll stay in Hoover City long enough to discharge and load cargo. Then it'll stop here for us and return to--to our new base." "What do you think Jacob would do if I didn't want to go with him?" * * * * * She shook her head. "You asked me that before. I said I didn't know." Ben thought, _I know a lot about you, Jacob. I know you're based on an asteroid. I know how many men you have, how many ships. I know where this dome is. I know you have men planted in the I. B. I. Would you let me go, knowing these things? How great is your immunity from the law? Do you love freedom so much that you'd kill to help preserve it?_ Fear crawled through his mind on icy legs. "Maggie," he said, "what would Jacob do if he were me?" She looked amused. "Jacob wouldn't have gotten into your situation. He wouldn't have struck Cobb. Jacob is--" "A man? And I'm still a boy? Is that what you mean?" "Not exactly. I think you'll be a man after you make your decision." He frowned, not liking her answer. "You think the dream of going into space is a boy's dream, that it can't belong to a man, too?"