"What? Why, Tom!"

"Oh, I know you would rather I was Pat! If you think I enjoy being second choice, think again."

She got tears in her eyes and I got ashamed and more difficult. So we had a bitter argument and then I was telling her how I had been swindled.

Her reaction wasn't what I expected. Instead of sympathy she said, "Oh, Tom, Tom! Can't you see that :Pat didn't do this to you? You did it to yourself."

"Huh?"

"It's not his fault; it's your own. I used to get so tired of the way you let him push you around. You liked having him push you around. You've got a 'will to fail.'"

I was so angry I had trouble answering. "What are you talking about? That sounds like a lot of cheap, chimney-corner psychiatry to me. Next thing you know you'll be telling me I have a 'death wish.'"

She blinked back tears. "No. Maybe Pat has that. He was always kidding about it but, just the same, I know how dangerous it is. I know we won't see him again."

I chewed that over. "Are you trying to say," I said slowly, "that I let Pat do me out of it because I was afraid to go?"

"What? Why, Tom dear, I never said anything of the sort."

"It sounded like it." Then I knew why it sounded like it. Maybe I was afraid. Maybe I had struggled just hard enough to let Pat win... because I knew what was going to happen to the one who went.

Maybe I was a coward.

We made it up and the date seemed about to end satisfactorily. When I took her home I was thinking of trying to kiss her good night—I never had, what with the way Pat and I were always in each other's hair. I think she expected me to, too.., when Pat suddenly whistled at me.

"Hey! You awake, mate?"

("Certainly,") I answered shortly. ("But I'm busy.")

"How busy? Are you out with my girl?"

("What makes you think that?")

"You are, aren't you? I figured you were. How are you making out?"

("Mind your own business!")

"Sure, sure! Just say hello to her for me. Hi, Maudie!"

Maudie said, "Tom, what are you so preoccupied about?"

I answered, "Oh, it's just Pat. He says to say hello to you."

"Oh... well, hello to him from me."

So I did. Pat chuckled. "Kiss her good night for me."

So I didn't, not for either of us.

But I called her again the next day and we went out together regularly after that. Things began to be awfully pleasant where Maudie was concerned... so pleasant that I even thought about the fact that college students sometimes got married and now I would be able to afford it, if it happened to work out that way. Oh, I wasn't dead sure I wanted to tie myself down so young, but it is mighty lonely to be alone when you've always had somebody with you.

Then they brought Pat home on a shutter.

It was actually an ambulance craft, specially chartered. The idiot had sneaked off and tried skiing, which he knew as much about as I know about pearl diving. He did not have much of a tumble; he practically fell over his own feet. But there he was, being carried into our flat on a stretcher, numb from the waist down and his legs useless. He should have been taken to a hospital, but he wanted to come home and Mum wanted him to come home, so Dad insisted on it. He wound up in the room Faith had vacated and I went back to sleeping on the couch.

The household was all upset, worse than it had been when Pat went away. Dad almost threw Frank Dubois out of the house when Frank said that now that this space travel nonsense was disposed of, he was still prepared to give Pat a job if he would study bookkeeping, since a bookkeeper could work from a wheelchair. I don't know; maybe Frank had good intentions, but I sometimes think "good intentions" should be declared a capital crime.

But the thing that made me downright queasy was the way Mother took it. She was full of tears and sympathy and she could not do enough for Pat—she spent hours rubbing his legs, until she was ready to collapse. But I could see, even if Dad couldn't, that she was indecently happy—she had her "baby" back. Oh, the tears weren't fake... but females seem able to cry and be happy at the same time.

We all knew that the "space travel nonsense" was washed up, but we did not discuss it, not even Pat and I; while he was flat on his back and helpless and no doubt feeling even worse than I did was no time to blame him for hogging things and then wasting our chance. Maybe I was bitter but it was no time to let him know. I was uneasily aware that the fat LRF cheeks would stop soon and the family would be short of money again when we needed it most and I regretted that expensive watch and the money I had blown in taking Maudie to places we had never been able to afford, but I avoided thinking about even that; it was spilt milk. But I did wonder what kind of a job I could get instead of starting college.

I was taken off guard when Mr. Howard showed up—I had halfway expected that LRF would carry us on the payroll until after Pat was operated on, even though the accident was not their fault and was the result of Pat's not obeying their regulations. But with the heaps of money they had I thought they might be generous.

But Mr. Howard did not even raise the question of the Foundation paying for, or not paying for, Pat's disability; he simply wanted to know how soon I would be ready to report to the training center?

I was confused and Mother was hysterical and Dad was angry and Mr. Howard was bland. To listen to him you would have thought that nothing had happened, certainly nothing which involved the slightest idea of letting us out of our contract. The parties of the second part and of the third part were interchangeable; since Pat could not go, naturally I would. Nothing had happened which interfered with our efficiency as a communication team. To be sure, they had let us have a few days to quiet down in view of the sad accident—but could I report at once? Time was short.

Dad got purple and almost incoherent. Hadn't they done enough to his family? Didn't they have any decency? Any consideration?

In the middle of it, while I was trying to adjust to the new situation and wandering what I should say, Pat called me silently. "Tom! Come here!"

I excused myself and hurried to him. Pat and I had hardly telepathed at all since he had been hurt. A few times he had called me in the night to fetch him a drink of water or something like that, but we had never really talked, either out loud or in our minds. Them was just this black, moody silence that shut me out. I didn't know how to cope with it; it was the first time either of us had ever been ill without the other one.

But when he called I hurried in. "Shut the door."

I did so. He looked at me grimly. "I caught you before you promised anything, didn't I?"

"Yeah."

"Go out there and tell Dad I want to see him right away. Tell Mum I asked her to please quit crying, because she is getting me upset." He smiled sardonically. "Tell Mr. Howard to let me speak to my parents alone. Then you beat it."

"Huh?"

"Get out, don't stop to say good-by and don't say where you are going. When I want you, I'll tell you. If you hang around, Mother will work on you and get you to promise things." He looked at me bleakly. "You never did have any will power."

I let the dig slide off; he was ill. "Look, Pat, you're up against a combination this time. Mother is going to get her own way no matter what and Dad is so stirred up that I'm surprised he hasn't taken a poke at Mr. Howard."

"I'll handle Mother, and Dad, too. Howard should have stayed away. Get going. Split 'em up, then get lost."

"All right," I said uneasily. "Uh... look, Pat, I appreciate He looked at me and his lip curled. "Think I'm doing this for you?"