The bulbous headpiece inclined in a nod. James walked to a panel and threw a switch marked INNER LOCK. A round aperture slid silently open. Ross stepped through it and the door shut behind him as James threw the switch back to its original position. Opposite the switch marked OUTER LOCK a signal glowed redly and James threw another switch. A moment later the signal flickered out. Frankston, with a violent gesture, swept the checker board clean. Red and black men clattered to the floor, rolling and spinning. Nobody picked them up. "What does he do it for?" demanded Frankston in a tight voice. "What does he get out of those stinking geraniums he can't touch or smell?" "Shut up," said Gregory. James looked up sharply. Curtness was unusual for Gregory, a bad sign. Frankston was the one he'd been watching, the one who'd shown signs of cracking, but after so long, even a psycho-expert's opinion might be haywire. Who was a yardstick? Who was normal? "Geraniums don't smell much anyway," added Gregory in a more conciliatory tone. "Yeah," agreed Frankston, "I'd forgotten that. But why does he torture himself like this, and us, too?" "Because that's what he wanted to do," answered James. "Sure," agreed Gregory, "the whole trip--the last twenty years of it, anyhow--all he could talk about was how, when he got back to Earth, he was going to buy a little place in the country and raise flowers." "Well, we're back," muttered Frankston, with a terrible bitterness. "He's raising flowers, but not in any little place in the country." * * * * * Gregory continued almost dreamily, "Remember the last night out? We were all gathered around the viewscreen. And there was Earth, getting bigger and greener and closer all the time. Remember what it felt like to be going back, after thirty years?" "Thirty years cooped up in this ship," grumbled Frankston. "All our twenties and thirties and forties ..." "But we were coming home." There was a rapt expression on Gregory's lined and weathered face. "We were looking forward to the twenty or maybe thirty good years we had left, talking about what we'd do, where we'd live, wondering what had changed on Earth. At least we had that last night out. All the data was stashed away in the microfiles, all the data about planets with air we couldn't breathe and food we couldn't eat. We were going home, home to big, friendly, green Earth." Frankston's face suddenly crumpled as though he were about to weep and he cradled his head against his arms. "God, do we have to go over it all again? Not again tonight!" "Leave him alone," ordered James with an inflection of command in his voice. "Go to the other section of the ship if you don't want to listen. He has to keep going over it, just like Ross has to keep watering his geraniums." Frankston remained motionless and Gregory looked gratefully at James. James was the steady one. It was easier for him because he understood.