The woman obsession

By William Campbell Gault
Surely Collins was an idiot. He kept dreaming of women in a world that knew nothing of love's delight. But where there's life—
Few writers possess William Campbell Gault's sensitive capacity for balancing delicacy with daring in themes which gracefully skirt the edge of the outrageous, and open up entire new worlds of speculation which future historians will most assuredly encounter in their travels time and time again. Seldom has he written a story more imaginatively audacious than this.
It was on the Mars-Jupiter run, a trip flea-bitten with asteroids, and needing a Level-One navigator. In all the galaxy, there were three Level-One navigators, and Horse Collins was one, and he was ours. By 'ours,' I mean Gideon Shipping, Inc. Twelve years I've piloted for them, and I think they're the best in the business.
Johnny Horse Collins was a typical space bum in one way. He was restless, he wanted to see what was out there. But he lacked discipline. And his thinking was earth-bound conventional. He'd even played football at college, and that's where he'd picked up the 'Horse' nickname. He'd been an All-Earth fullback, and why he'd gone on to navigator's school from there I'm not competent to judge. A man who can make All-Earth in a game dominated by robots is bound to have some body. No one but a sportswriter would suspect he might also have a mind.
Horse had a fine mind for his business; otherwise he was, as I've said, rather conventional, like a fullback. He liked women, for one thing.
Why? I asked him one day. Their primary function is handled better by the Massago-Lust. If they have any secondary functions, I've forgotten them.
You never knew any of their functions, except through books, Horse answered. Second-hand living.
I stared at him. If traveling among the stars wasn't living, then what the hell was? I asked him that pointblank.
It's nothing I could explain to you, he said. You're space-happy.