pete felt a little sad when his leave began to run out. they sat around evenings adoring each other, not too late, because pete was a man who needed plenty of sleep or he felt irritable the next day. nancy never took his bad days seriously. the laughing happiness of youth was still in her eyes, but there was a firmness behind it now, the maturity of a girl who knows how to become a woman.
he went down to the spaceport a few times to look over the ship he was signed up for, and took the routine physical. doctors went over his mind and his body, probing with needles and tubes and questions that were pointless.
"what do you think of the popular songs of today, mr. cooper?"
"what do you remember of your mother, mr. cooper?"
"are you interested in girls, mr. cooper?"
"do you have a close friendship with any of the other men in the crew, mr. cooper...?"
the routine this time seemed worse than ever. actually he'd had worse ones, when the medical fashions of the time called for it, but somehow it seemed more annoying this time.
"five hundred years," he told the doctor. "five hundred years i've been living this life and i know more about it than you ever will. captain drago told me on the trip to altair—no, sirius it was, that i was the most devoted man in the service. pete, he said, when you're aboard, i never worry about the engines, i'd rather have you sitting on them than anybody else. that's the way he talked—sitting on the engines, he called it...."
the doctor watched pete thoughtfully and made notes on the paper before him. and the next day the mail brought the message that peter cooper, master engineman first class, was retired from the service. there was a personal letter of congratulations from an undersecretary, and a notice that his pension would start the first of the following month.
"it's a mistake!" pete told his wife angrily. "something's wrong! they didn't talk to captain drago like i told them, and—"
nancy's eyes were indignant. she sent him steaming back with fire in his eyes, but he couldn't change the decision. he did get as far as the office of the doctor who had asked him all the fool questions, and he saw a paper he wasn't meant to see. it stunned him into temporary silence.
but it wasn't true! positively not!
definite signs of senility, the notes read. irritable reaction to questioning. mind wanders, fixes on irrelevancies. preoccupation with casual remarks of associates....
and more. he didn't tell nancy this, nor did he show her the reply he received to his protest.
"while a search of our records indicates a subjective—chronological age of approximately 48.6 years, physiological analysis puts the condition of your body at a much higher figure—it would be guesswork to try to name a figure. however, recent studies indicate that interstellar personnel with long terms of service tend to age at an increasingly rapid rate, due probably to psychological factors stemming from the knowledge of separation from the natal culture....
"we are sorry...."
he kept his hair dark and the wrinkles smoothed out and forced the tiredness from his bones. other things were harder to fake, but nancy wasn't a demanding wife. she thought he was about thirty-five, and she thought the blow of being dropped from the service had taken the life from him. she took his part firmly.
"it's nothing to be ashamed of, pete. not one person in a thousand could pass the examination for the interstellar service—they're really tough. and we're together."
"what will we live on?" pete demanded, knowing he was being too irritable, but unable to control it. he waved the pension check. "can we live on that? a fine payment for my years of service."
nancy looked dubiously at the check. "i thought it was a lot ... but don't worry, pete. you have a wife to stand by you.".
