Then Jean, cool and self-possessed and slightly disapproving, with warmth and humor peeping through from underneath when she smiled. A lazy, crinkly kind of smile, like Christmas lights going on one by one. He wished he'd acted more grown up that night they watched the rain dance at the pueblo. For the hundredth time, he went over what he remembered of their last date, seeing the gleam of her shoulder, and the angry disappointment in her eyes; hearing again his awkward apologies. She was a nice kid. Silently his mouth formed the words. "You're a nice kid." _I think she loves me. She was just mad because I got drunk._ The tension of approaching combat suddenly blended with the memory, welling up into a rush of tenderness and affection. He whispered her name, and suddenly he knew that if he got back he was going to ask her to marry him. He thought of his father, rocking on the porch of the Pennsylvania farm, pipe in his mouth, the weathered old face serene, as he puffed and listened to the radio beside him. He wished he'd written him last night, instead of joining the usual beer and bull session in the wardroom. He wished--. He wished. "I've got him, Paul. He's got two point seven miles of RV on us. Take thirty degrees high on two point one o'clock for course to IP." * * * * * Automatically he turned the control wheel to the right and eased it back. The gyros recorded the turn to course. "Hold 4 G's for one six five seconds, then coast two minutes for initial point five hundred miles on his tail." "Right, Johnny. One sixty-five, then two minutes." He set the timer, advanced the throttle to 4 G's, and stepped back an inch as the acceleration took him snugly into the cradle. The Return-To-Station-Fuel and Relative-Velocity-To-Station gauges did their usual double takes on a change of course, as the ship computer recorded the new information. He liked those two gauges--the two old ladies. Mrs. RSF kept track of how much more fuel they had than they needed to get home. When they were moving away from station, she dropped in alarmed little jumps, but when they were headed home, she inched along in serene contentment, or if they were coasting, sneaked triumphantly back up the dial. Mrs. RVS started to get jittery at about ten mps away from home, and above fifteen, she was trembling steadily. He didn't blame the old ladies for worrying. With one hour of fuel at 5 G's, you didn't fire a single squirt unless there was a good reason for it. Most of their time on a mission was spent free wheeling, in the anxiety-laden boredom that fighting men have always known. _Wish the Red was coming in across our course._ It would have taken less fuel, and the chase wouldn't have taken them so far out. But then they'd probably have been spotted, and lost the precious element of surprise.