He took a minute drink from the reservoir, stalling. There was something--yes; he had _meant_ to refill the apparatus after his dinner ration. And he _had_ told her to give it a few hours of straightaway some night.... He said formally: "You're quite right on both counts. I apologize." He bit into a ration. "That's not good enough," she said. "I'm not going to have you tell me you're sorry and then go scowling and sulking about the boat. In fact I don't like your behavior at all." He said, enormously angry: "_Oh, you don't do you?_" and hated her, the world and himself for the stupid inadequacy of the comeback. "No. I don't. I'm seriously worried. I'm afraid the conditioning you got didn't fall away completely when they swore you in. You've been acting irrationally and inconsistently." "What about you?" he snapped. "You got conditioned too." "That's right," she said. "That's another reason why you're worrying me. I find impulses in myself that have no business there. I simply seem to do a better job of controlling them than you're doing. For instance: we've been quarreling and at cross-purposes ever since you and Martha picked me up. That couldn't be unless I were contributing to the friction." The wheel was fixed; she took a step or two aft and said professorially: "I've never had trouble getting along with people. I've had differences, of course, and at times I've allowed myself displays of temper when it was necessary to assert myself. But I find that you upset me; that for some reason or other your opinion on a matter is important to me, that if it differs with mine there should be a reconciliation." He put down the ration and said wonderingly: "Do you know, that's the way I feel about you? And you think it's the conditioning or--or something?" He took a couple of steps forward, hesitantly. "Yes," she said in a rather tremulous voice. "The conditioning or something. For instance, you're inhibited. You haven't made an indecent proposition to me, not even as a matter of courtesy. Not that I care, of course, but--" In stepping aft, she tripped over the water bucket and went down to the deck with a faint scream. He said: "Here, let me help you." He picked her up and didn't let go. "Thanks," she said faintly. "The conditioning technique can't be called faulty, but it has inherent limitations...." She trailed off and he kissed her. She kissed back and said more faintly still: "Or it might be the drugs we used.... Oh, Charles, what _took_ you so long?" He said, brooding: "You're way out of my class, you know. I'm just a bagman for the New York police. I wouldn't even be that if it weren't for Uncle Frank, and you're a Falcaro. It's just barely thinkable that I could make a pass at you. I guess that held me off and I didn't want to admit it so I got mad at you instead. Hell, I could have swum back to the base and made a damned fool of myself trying to find Grinnel, but down inside I knew better. The kid's _gone_."