"No, I was here. What happened, Arnie? The little ladies and gentlemen get rough over their grog?" The recreation director twisted guiltily in his chair and muttered, "Wish they had!" "No, El. Party seems to have been rather unpopular. You might canvass a bit on your way up and see if you can get a line on it. We'll have to cheer up Forsberg here if he's going to get back to keeping us gay." The wall-box returned rather grumpily, "I trained for astrogator, not public relations. See you," and went dead. * * * * * Elbert Avery cleared his communicator, glanced once more at the position-calc dials, rotated his chair and stood up. Slipping on his officer's braidjac, he nodded curtly to the Second Astrogator and went out into the corridor. Twenty feet up the dark passage was the first of the eight rearward porthole stations. Avery slipped into the niche beside the observer's chair, and the watcher, sensing the astrogator's presence, shook his head vigorously against the hypnotic glitter of the stars and looked up. "How's it go?" from Avery. "Go? Who's going anyplace? Stars sit still, we sit still just looking." Watcher Peters' voice was flat. "You sure anybody's going somewhere?" Avery ignored the question. "Have a good time at the party last night?" The watcher grunted, "Party, huh? All dressed up and no place to go. Same faces, same dining saloon, same games. I took a turn around the stations and went to bed. Party in this trap's just like looking out the hole. Nothing happens." "Just don't like travel, eh?" "Who said anything about travel? When you travel you move along all the time, and the trees and the mountains and towns rush past and you're going somewhere. I'll take travel any day--but this lost space hospital...." Avery tried to be jovial. "Good thing we're old enough to be used to waiting. This would drive the young ones crazy." "Driving me crazy too. Just waiting for the chance to be farmers and go on waiting for crops." Avery edged out of the niche, although the watcher was obviously not done. "All settled down waiting to settle down. Coffee without sugar, night without end, months without news...." Avery was thirty feet down the corridor now. "... and no new audience to listen to all the swell gripes I sit here working out." His voice lost its flatness, became full and genial. "I'm the best damn griper in this damn outfit," he bragged, "I'm the...." (Noting Avery's absence) "... oh what the hell!" He brought his gaze back to the window to the stars.