"What is it, Titus?" his wife asked as he strapped himself in beside her.
"The supplementary gravity generator hasn't been refueled! It's sputtering out!"
From space, he watched the end of McWorther's World.
The atmosphere went first, swooshing outward as a result of abrupt decompression and leaving a halo of frozen water crystals in its wake. Then the cargo that was piled on the surface recoiled from its own cumulative pressure and shot out into space. The topsoil followed suit, dispersing like a dust storm, while the lakes boiled in one instant and their vapor froze in the next.
Before any of the hurtling mess could reach his spaceabout, Titus followed the Pullman crafts, the Rear-Sobucks delivery vehicle and the Presidential and Imperial yachts into hyperspace.
Titus and Edna McWorther have given up rustic retirement. Instead they are living out their declining years in a floating villa just off the Jersey coast.
Life is still gratifying, with the exception of one detail.
But Titus is resolved that he and his wife will have to be content with the shower-masseur for the rest of their lives.
At any rate, he'll be damned if he'll put in another order for an automatic bather, with or without a back-scrubbing attachment.