"In my office?" "It concerns official business." "I see." She looked at the graph. "What's that? Something new?" _Changing the subject_, he thought to himself. _What's she afraid of?_ Aloud, he answered, "It's Childe's results from the Big Brain ... the machine's wave patterns extrapolated over a million years." He turned the graph around so she could see it better. Elaine studied it for a moment, then shook her head. "Childe was right, wasn't he? It doesn't make any sense at all. No pattern, no rhyme, no reason." "I don't know," Lee said. "There's something ... well, something strange about these waves. They don't follow a regular pattern, and yet...." "What?" He frowned. "They're just too damned irregular to be really random. That doesn't make much sense, does it? Well, anyway, I've got the feeling that I've seen this pattern--or lack of pattern--before. Somewhere I've seen something that looks a lot like this ... but I can't remember where." Elaine looked at the graph again, at the multiple curves swinging back and forth across the paper, intertwining in seeming confusion. "It looks like some of the graphs I drew when I was an undergrad." He laughed. "Maybe that's where I saw it." There was an awkward silence. Lee got up from his seat and walked around the desk. He pulled up another chair and sat beside Elaine. "Now, what's the trouble?" "I've been thinking," she said slowly. "I ... I've decided to transfer off Titan." "Leave? But why?" "For us, Sid. For both of us. Before we get so wrapped up in each other that we won't be able to break it up without really getting hurt...." "I don't understand," he said. She spoke calmly and softly, no tears, no hysterics. She had thought it all out very carefully. "Sid, take a look around you. We're like two castaways on a desert world. We love each other--here and now. But we won't always be here. What happens when we leave Titan? What happens when we're not faced with the loneliness and that ... that _thing_ out there? Suppose we find that we don't really need each other? What then?" "But I do need you, Elaine. I love you." "You do now," she answered. "But how long will it last? Sid, I have to get away, at least for a little while. I need a sense of perspective." "I see," he said, shifting his gaze away from her. "That doesn't leave me much to say, does it? All right, Elaine. Make out a transfer request and I'll sign it." "Thanks. I ... I hope you understand." She got up and started slowly toward the door. "I'm not so sure that you understand this yourself," he replied. "But I know this--I don't want to lose you, Elaine. If you haven't worked this out within a month or so after you leave Titan, I'll come looking for you." She turned and, without a word, went over and kissed him. Then she quickly left the office.