"And whose speech are you repeating?" I said, getting more and more mad every minute. "Thorsten's?" "Yes!" "All right, if you think so God damned much of him, suppose you tell me what he is to you now?" I asked. "He's my husband." She didn't even hesitate. * * * * * I started for her, before I could think of words for the doublecrossing.... She came off the navigation table like a coiled spring. She had a gun in her hand. "Ash--get back! I don't want to hurt you. Ash--can't you see why? Do you think I'm the kind who--?" I kept coming. "No," I said, "I can't see why. I'm not built so I could see why. And yes, I do think you're the kind." "I don't know why I had to pick you!" she screamed then. "Maybe I remembered something--maybe I found something out, after it was too late--" She was crying, but she was bringing the gun up at the same time. I didn't care. I didn't care if she pulled the trigger or not. "I told you," I said between my teeth. She had the gun aimed right at me. Her face was gray, and her hand was shaking. "I told you the last time what I'd do if you ever pointed a gun at me again." My voice was coming out low, but it had absolutely nothing in it. It was just words, coming out one by one. The gun muzzle was shaking badly. She put up her hand to steady it. "I--" she said. There were tears running down her cheeks in a steady wet stream. She should have pulled the trigger. I think she should have. But she didn't. I smashed my fist against the gun, and it was out of her hands, crashing into metal somewhere. "Ash!" she screamed, and raked her nails across my face. She kicked up her knee, and fire exploded in my groin. I fell forward, slamming her down on the deck, and threw my entire dead weight across her shoulders. I didn't have to. Her head had hit the deck, and she lay unconscious, blood seeping out through her hair. * * * * * She wouldn't talk to me. She lay on her bunk, her chest rising and falling under the straps I'd buckled around her. I tried to explain, to make her understand, somehow. "Pat, I've got a responsibility to the people I work for. I've spent the last ten years keeping characters like Harry Thorsten from taking over this System. It's a rough job, and it's a dirty one. I can't help that. I don't like it. Pat, it's got to be this way." She wouldn't talk to me. She wouldn't listen. I walked out of her cabin, locking the door behind me. Locking a door and forgetting what's on the other side are two different things. I went up to the control room and set a course for Titan. Maybe once we got out there, I'd be able to convince her. It was a lousy hope. I didn't even understand her--she was like something I'd never seen before. How could she be like she was? How, goddam it, _how_? VI Titan lay ahead of me, pursuing its track around Saturn.