"Why not? Afraid that if we mention it too often we might suddenly realize we're married?" She nodded her head slowly. "Something like that." I shut off the projector. I had no interest in astrogation at the moment. "Is that why you avoid me?" "I don't avoid you." "You always find time to horse around with Morrie," I said. Now she smiled. "Are you by any chance jealous?" she asked. "If you are, you have no right." "Damnit, I'm not. I just want equal time," I said. "I should have the right to want as much time with my legal wife as those other bums." "I'm doing the laundry with you," she said teasingly. "That's the first time I've done that with anybody on this ship." "I'm in your debt, gracious lady," I said. There was a trace of sarcasm, less than I felt, in my voice. She heard it, too, and gave me a sharp glance. "I do want to talk to you about something, Bill Drake," she said. "Sure. The laundry doesn't need attention. Let's talk." "You've noticed that we're not the jolly little group we started out to be when we first boarded the ship, haven't you?" "Yes, but it's because we're getting bored. We've been going around the earth in a spiral, like a merry-go-round. We don't seem to be getting anyplace." "That's not what I mean," she said. "We are getting someplace. The spiral widens a little more each turn. Very soon now--perhaps within hours--we'll break away from the earth. We all realize it. And the farther away from earth we go, the less we'll feel bound by standards of the earth." I frowned. "I don't see what you're driving at, Gail." She glanced toward the bulkhead door at the end of the room. It led to the shower room and lavatory. She glided toward it, using the familiar "space walk" we all had learned in order to conform to the very light, artificial gravity. She opened the door, peered in, then closed it and returned. "Just wanted to be sure we really were alone," she said. "What I wanted to talk about was Dr. Spartan. It--it's the way he looks at me." "We all look at you," I said. "I thought most girls liked it and felt like they were slipping when men stopped looking." "That's right, when you speak of a normal male look," she said. "But the bearded monster frightens me." "Relax," I said. "He won't get out of hand. That old boy is no fool and he won't pull any raw deals. The one I'd look out for is Morrie. He acts like a crazy kid sometimes. You can't always figure him." "Morrie!" she exclaimed. "Bill Drake, you _are_ jealous! He's just a kid." "That's what I said, a crazy kid." "And I'm two years older than he is." The washer stopped spinning and I went over and began removing the duds and putting them in the dryer. She started to get up to help me. She'd been sitting cross-legged on the floor, as we all did because we had no chairs aboard. "Don't bother," I told her. "This isn't hard work."