They were free to go anywhere when on leave, and nearly a hundred were assigned to the factory-Center dining hall. They were friendly, didn't mind the crowding, and told strange stories of their homelands. Sometimes they spoke of space battles, but generally were as reticent on this subject as the Americans. As time went on Sue lost weight. The curves of her willowy figure became less noticeable, and toward June she became more introspective. One day she came out of a reverie to realize she had been staring at a boy across the table. He was small, dark and had noticeably bright brown eyes. His lower features, his slender neck, his undeveloped arms and shoulders told her that he couldn't possibly be over fourteen. This was not what held her attention. She was staring at the two ribbons tied at his throat and the two stars on the breast of his uniform. As she studied his eyes again she was suddenly shocked into the realization that, however many years he had lived, he was a man full grown, aged by experience out in the void. What his eyes had seen had burned into his soul. She was ashamed of her own weakness, and determined henceforth to keep her hands from trembling, to remain more alert and to make her machine produce more. Soon after she went back to work a man came and handed her two ribbons. She stared unbelievingly, murmured, "Al," and then it seemed that the floor came up to meet her. She awoke in her own bed in the dormitory and remained there. The dorm mother came to talk, told her she must rest for another day. "Al," she breathed, dry-eyed and feverishly. "Al." The woman explained that the ribbons were not for Al, but for her father who had died somewhere out near Pluto. She rolled over on her face, but couldn't cry. There were no tears left in her. A doctor came and gave her an injection and the following day she went back to work. She got word indirectly that Al was back. A girl told her that she had heard it from one of the boys from the Center. "They carried him out of the ship," she said. Sue refused to believe it. She set her jaw firmly and determined to wait. Late in the afternoon a man with a groundcar came and told her she was wanted at Recovery Seven Oh Six. She still couldn't believe it, but went with him calmly. They told her at Recovery that Al would someday walk again and that they would give him a new left arm, if not of flesh, then mechanical. His lungs had been crushed by pressure, but such was the fire of life in him that he would live and maybe fight again. * * * * * She went forty-eight hours without sleep in order to be with him all of the time she wasn't working. On the third day his lone good arm came round her and drew her down on the bed, and she slept on his shoulder. From time to time she overheard nurses and doctors talking. The talk was usually about a subject that would always stir a woman. "If no babies are born," one said, "for fifty years--"