pete was spending half his waking hours with nancy and the other half in the men's beauty parlor. not that he was old—a little prematurely gray and somewhat wrinkled from the hard sun of space and the unkind atmospheres of alien planets. and he had his contact lenses changed—paper was scarce in this era and they were using finer print to stretch the supply. but he was still young. he studied the full length mirror and decided he'd pass for thirty-five. his actual age—that would be hard to guess. someday he'd look into the company records and figure it out. but mentally, he told himself, i'm a young man, even though i walked through this city five hundred years ago.
a young man in love.
they knew in this era how to make it nice for young people in love, if you could afford one of the better places. pete sat across the table from nancy at a tiny table on a roof far above the city. the room was crowded, but some trick of design made it seem that they were alone together. there was real music played by real people. some of the melodies were old ones that brought a mood of nostalgia to the time man, with memories of past loves. but then he looked across at nancy, with her innocent laughing eyes, and the beauty of her brought a lump to his throat that drove out all the small loves of the past. this was it. this time he was really in love.
"pete," she said, "don't you ever get tired of it? of jumping through the ages, coming back to find your old friends gone, being a stranger in a strange world? for instance, how about me? you'll be back from sirius or altair some day, a year or two older, and i'll be an old woman? how does it really feel?"
pete took her hands and stared earnestly into her eyes. she was more serious than he'd ever seen her as she gazed back at him.
"it's not the right way to live, nancy. a man doesn't really live, in the real meaning of life. a man needs a woman, a wife he can come home to." he squeezed her hands gently. "nancy, will you marry me?"
her hands trembled in his grasp.
"i will, pete—oh, pete, i've been so hoping—and so afraid. but, pete, your job...?"
he smiled reassuringly.
"i'm signed up for a trip, but it's only a short one—that planet of proxima centauri they just discovered is on the list for a complete survey. but i'll be back in—seven, eight years. then we can really settle down."
she bent over the table and kissed him.
"i'll wait, pete."
"no, nancy. now. we'll be married first; i'll still be here a couple of months, why waste them? i don't want to take any chances of losing you."
"i wanted to hear that, pete." her eyes were shining with happiness. "about getting married now, i mean—there's no chance of your losing me."
pete was serious about settling down after the short trip to proxima. at least he was serious about it now. but after that trip was over....
he didn't think about that sort of thing any more. he had tried to puzzle it out a few times, how he could tell a girl he was making one more trip, and mean it, and then one more and then one more until a happy young girl was suddenly a disillusioned embittered old woman. there was a paradox of conscience here that he had given up trying to resolve. when he said he was making one more trip, he meant it. but at the same time he knew that when he came back he'd sign up for another. if he meant what he said when he said it, even though he knew he'd change his mind later—
his conscience was clear.
and of course a man must be practical. his earnings must be invested, and the future provided for. the honeymoon was still new when the insurance agent responded to pete's call.
"i've always believed in insurance," he told nancy. "of course, no amount of money could console me if i came back and found that something had happened to you. but people must prepare for the unpleasant things in life."
"of course," said nancy, who never disagreed with her husband. "we have to be sensible about things. i might have an accident, and so might you. we have to face things like that."
the insurance man was a little dazed. he'd never sold a policy nearly as big as the amount pete had named.
"nobody's had an accident on an interstellar ship in hundreds of years," he assured nancy. "the rate for your husband will be negligible—we expect him to be around for a real long time. now, sir," he told pete, "your best buy is our family special—the full value to be paid to the survivor. as i said, the cost for you is trivial, and for your wife...."
he thumbed his rate book nervously. pete wrote a check to pay the policy in full, and the insurance man walked out in a trance, spending his commission.
and nancy hadn't noticed that pete's signature had gone on a guarantee that he wouldn't resign from the interstellar service for at least two hundred years, objective earth time.
