to try to make friends, except for the people at his dining table—particularly Tanya.

Of all the lovely women on board, he thought Tanya Taganova the loveliest. He knew he was not alone in this, for the arresting planes of her face, the dramatic color of her rustling taffeta gowns, attracted many followers. He would sit in the lounge at night and watch her dancing, and then realize, suddenly, that she had disappeared, long before the evening was over. She was an elusive creature, as unpredictable as a butterfly.

Wandering listlessly about the ship, one afternoon he stepped through the open door of the Library. In the almost empty room he saw the auburn head of Tanya, bent over so as to hide her face and show him only her glowing hair. She raised her head as he approached.

"Are you looking for a book, Dr. Chase?"

"No, I just wondered what was interesting you so much."

She shifted her seat, to let him see a large sheet of rough drawing paper covered with a chalk sketch of a desolate gray marsh over which green waves swirled from the sea, behind them loomed rose-colored granite hills.

"I'm a scene designer, you know. But at home, somehow, I never have time to myself. People will never believe I'm serious, and when I want to get some real work done, I run away on a trip, by myself. Right now I'm sketching out a set for a new stereodrama we're staging next autumn. This particular one is for a melancholy suicide on Venus. I've several more here." She pointed to a scattered heap of drawings.

The soft chime of the library telephone interrupted them. Tanya rose and moved to the desk.

"Yes? Not now, youngster. I'm working. Yes, maybe tomorrow."

Alan had been examining her drawings. "Is this what you do during the hours when you disappear?".

"Usually. Sometimes I drop into the playroom to chat with the children. They're more interesting than their parents, for the most part, and nobody ever seems to pay much attention to them."

"But do you have to work at night, too? When you disappear in the middle of the evening, everybody misses you. The men all watch for you to come back, their wives sigh with relief, and old man Jasperson toddles around and searches the dance floor and bleats, 'Where's Miss Tanya? She was here just a little while ago, and now I can't find her anywhere!'"

"I know. But one dance an evening with him is about all I can stand. I don't really like the man."

"But why? He's a little stupid, but he seems a harmless sort of duck. In a financial deal, of course, I can see that he'd be sharp and ruthless—that's how men like him become millionaires—but he can't knife anybody on shipboard."

Tanya slashed a heavy black line across her drawing, bearing down so hard that she broke the chalk, and threw the pieces to the floor.

"He's a coward! Haven't you ever noticed the way he bullies the waiters? How he patronizes Professor Larrabee, and ignores the young Halls? And to hear him tell it, you'd think only his advice makes it possible for Captain Evans to run the ship! I'm afraid of men like that. They're cowardly and boastful, and in a crisis they are dangerous!"

"What an outburst over a fat little bald-headed man! Aren't you letting your dramatic sense run away with you?"

Laughing, Tanya picked up her chalk and resumed sketching. "Probably, but after all, I earn my living with my imagination."

"Then you aren't just a rich young woman dabbling in the theater?"

"No indeed. If you could see my bank account! No, I'm going to Almazin III to make authentic sketches of the landscape. We may do a show set in that locale, next year."

"I wish I could see some of the shows you stage."

"When we get home, I'll send you a pass."

He did not answer. Suddenly the melancholy Venusian scene she was creating depressed him, as if it had been a reflection of his own barren life.

"Or don't you like the theater, Dr. Chase?"

"It's not that," he said hastily. "Only—" He shrugged his shoulders. "Something about this ship, I suppose. Home seems so very far away."

"Have you felt that too? I've had the feeling, sometimes, that earth isn't there any more, and that this ship is the only reality."

By the end of the third week out, Burl Jasperson was afflicted by an almost intolerable tension. He prowled the ship like a tiger, for he could think of nothing more to do. For the moment there were no more improvements to suggest to the Star Line, no more brilliant financial deals to execute, and each empty minute seemed to swell into an endless hour. He tried to relax by viewing the dramas on the stereoscreen, but he was always too uneasy to sit through an entire performance, and would leave in the middle to resume his pacing of the corridors.

At his private table in the dining room he stared at the empty chair across from him, munching his food mechanically, seething with unrest. He could see Tanya's gleaming head across the room, with Alan Chase's beside her, and he tortured himself with imagining the light laughter, the friendly talk which must be taking place there. Never, before this trip, had he been made to feel so unnecessary, so much an outsider. Wasn't he a lord of finance, a master of industry, the kind of a man to be respected and admired? Of course, less successful men called him ruthless, he realized, but he was not ruthless—only realistic. He was an able man, and if he expected people in general to take orders from him, it was only because he was more intelligent and more capable than the people to whom he gave his orders. Nothing wrong with that.

But these miserable empty days were beginning to frighten him. He felt lost. The ship ran by herself, without needing his help, and there was no doubt at all that she would win the Blue Ribbon. Although he questioned Captain Evans sharply, and checked every day on the minutest data of the voyage, so far he had found nothing to criticize—except the coldness of Josiah Evans' manner.

He ground his teeth through a stalk of celery in a vicious bite. After all, wasn't he Chairman of the board of directors of the Star Line? Wasn't it his right, even his duty, to make sure that everything was going well?

The crowd of diners had grown thin, now, and he could see clearly the little group at Tanya's table. They were laughing, and he could see the delightful animation which always disappeared whenever he tried to talk to her.

Steward Davis sidled up, a deferential smile on his long face.

"Is everything all right, Mr. Jasperson?"

"Um."

"Looks like we'll get the Blue Ribbon this trip, doesn't it, sir?"

"Um."

"If you should ever want any special dishes, sir, any little delicacies not available to everyone, I should be glad to speak to the chef."

Jasperson pushed his plate away. "I'll remember, Davis." Throwing down his napkin he stood up. His waiter came running.

"Dessert, sir?"

Without answering, he strode across the room, trying to compose his mouth into a smile as he reached his goal.

"Miss Taganova, would you care to join me in the bar for a drink?"

They all looked up at him in astonishment.

"But I've just finished dinner," she said.

He waited, uncertainly. At last Professor Larrabee pointed to the unoccupied chair.

"Perhaps you'd care to join us, instead?"

No one else spoke, and he sat down nervously. Conversation had stopped, and at last he broke out with explosive force.

"I wish Captain Evans would speed up this ship. It feels as if we'd been on the way forever. And still three weeks to go!"

"Do you find three weeks so long a time?" asked the professor.

"It seems like eternity. I wish something would happen. Why can't we have a little excitement?"