"No," I said. "We're fed and entertained. We're being educated at one of the finest universities in the world--for us, she's been a genuine, homogenized-milk Alma Momma. She even gives us an allowance to buy airmail stamps for our collection, or bar-bells, or gas for our sports-car. She's given us everything we need for happiness. Everything, Firebird, but purpose. That's why we're all going nuts--why Mike went barefoot in the snow and Mary used love for a suicide-weapon. That's why we've got to break free." "Free?" she asked. "You mean, free to step outside the Big Tank, shed our sterility-suits, turn septic--and die?" "I mean free to step off earth." We sat by mutual consent on a bench beneath a sugar maple, brushing aside half an inch of multicolored leaves. I told the Firebird of the broadcast from a southern star, and about the Immermann skull. I told her all I knew about the Orion rockets, the nuclear-pulse ships that had gone through five prototypes to reach the _Zeta_. "She's built to travel light-years," I said. "I'm going with her when she leaves." "Of course, I'm going with you," she said. "Your spacemen will need a dietitian to make metabolic sense out of algal soups and hydroponic salads for the first couple of generations, and to teach the youngsters to take over the kitchen once they're on their own." "Firebird," I said, "I'm happy to welcome you aboard. Now we've got to get that ship." "We'll get it," she said. "Understand, Johnny, it's not the professional challenge that makes me want to blast off for Alpha Centauri with four generations to feed. I've got no special urge to tame frontiers. The reason I'm going--forgive me for mentioning it again, and cold sober--is to stay near you." I stood up, drawing her up after me, and was struck again by the aptness of the nickname, "chastity-suit." "Perhaps I've overestimated the effectiveness of a certain taboo," I said. "Come on, sweet Firebird. Let's get back to the Tank to help Bud recruit the rest of our crew." * * * * * Colonel Barrett was young for eagles. My fellow volunteers-designate and I, all twenty-eight of us, were gathered in the lounge of English Hall, creaking and wheezing in our sterility-suits, looking very ready for hard space.