By the time I got there the revelry had already started. I made a couple of passes at the punch bowl and looked around for Betty. She was out on the floor; I pried her loose from the Joe who was trying to dance with her, and we made one eccentric ellipse around the hall and headed for the terrace. It was cool out there, the unostentatious coolness of an early summer evening that has not quite forgotten the heat of the day, and there was a bright wash of moonlight on the bay beyond the lights of the town. There was a lot of stardust around. Betty must have seen it too. She turned toward me, and the solemn look on her face and the way her shoulders glowed in the moonlight and the moonlight gleamed in her hair was enough to make your breath come short. My breath, at least. It came right up in my throat and stuck there, and I reached out and we sort of melted together. It was the first time that had happened. That's how hard they work you at Tech. After a little while we separated and I opened my eyes and they still worked well enough for me to see a bench not far away and we walked over and sat down. Betty sighed and leaned toward me and I moved my arm out of the way to make room. The skin of her shoulder was smooth to my hand, and cool the way the evening air was cool. "It's been fun, Tom, hasn't it?" I knew she meant the last three years and not just the last three minutes. "Lots of work and lots of fun," I agreed. "That's why space work gets in your blood, I think. It's fun even when it's hardest. My hitch in the Girdle even seems like fun now that it's over." "I can see how planet work must be a thrill, even if I haven't ever been beyond the moon. I will be though--I'm going out with my uncle's Vesta expedition in a couple of weeks, you know." * * * * * I hadn't known. I knew she had been talking about it, but I had hoped Ed Day would have sense enough to say no. I wasn't altogether selfish about it. I did want her closer in, nearer where I would be, but a big part of the reason was that the asteroid belt was the Edge, and the Edge has always been a rough place for women, even when it was at the moon. I started to tell her this, but she interrupted. "How did you make out with Translunar? The man must have had a lot to say to keep you this long." "I get the money all right. And a job." "A good one?" "Six thousand." "Yes, but what and where?" "Luna City. I'll be port engineer." "Oh, Tom!" I didn't think she had to put so much disappointment in her voice. It was practically disdain. "I should think Translunar could do better than that. It's practically landlocked. You aren't going to take it, are you?" "Why not? Six thousand is a nice sackful of cash, and besides, I get a piece of the company. Not a very big one, but it will grow."