Eddie Thompson gazed at his superior pityingly. "I know you're ten nines per cent monk, Babe, but I _did_ think you pulled your nose out of the megacycles often enough to learn a _few_ of the facts of life. Did you ever hear of Warner Oil?" "I think so." Deston thought for a moment. "Found a big new field, didn't they? In South America somewhere?" "Just the biggest on Earth, is all. And not only on Earth. He operates in all the systems for a hundred parsecs around, and he never sinks a dry hole. Every well he drills is a gusher that blows the rig clear up into the stratosphere. Everybody wonders how he does it. My guess is that his wife's an oil-witch, which is why he lugs his whole family along wherever he goes. Why else would he?" "Maybe he loves her. It happens, you know." "Huh?" Eddie snorted. "After twenty years of her? Comet-gas! Anyway, would _you_ have the sublime gall to make passes at Warner Oil's heiress, with more millions in her own sock than you've got dimes?" "I don't make passes." "That's right, you don't. Only at books and tapes, even on ground leaves; more fool you. Well, then, would you _marry_ anybody like that?" "Certainly, if I loved...." Deston paused, thought a moment, then went on: "Maybe I wouldn't, either. She'd make me dress for dinner. She'd probably have a live waiter; maybe even a butler. So I guess I wouldn't, at that." "You nor me neither, brother. But _what_ a dish! What a lovely, luscious, toothsome _dish_!" Eddie mourned. "You'll be raving about another one tomorrow," Deston said, unfeelingly, as he turned away. "I don't know; but even if I do, _she_ won't be anything like _her_," Eddie said, to the closing door. And Deston, outside the door, grinned sardonically to himself. Before his next watch, Eddie would bring up one of the prettiest girls aboard for a gold badge; the token that would let her--under approved escort, of course--go through the Top. He himself never went down to the Middle, which was passenger territory. There was nothing there he wanted. He was too busy, had too many worthwhile things to do, to waste time that way ... but the hunch was getting stronger and stronger all the time. For the first time in all his three years of deep-space service he felt an overpowering urge to go down into the very middle of the Middle; to the starship's main lounge. He knew that his hunches were infallible. At cards, dice, or wheels he had always had hunches and he had always won. That was why he had stopped gambling, years before, before anybody found out. He was that kind of a man.