It took me a while to finish looking Garrity over, myself. When I managed to get my voice under control, I asked him what he was talking about.
"I saw what happened to my old man," Garrity told me. "When he came up for retirement, he was broke. He doesn't complain, but he never has anything left out of his retirement pay. Spends his time loafing around and writing his memoirs. It was women, mostly; after he lost my mother—she died when I was born—he went off to space again. Sent back enough to keep me, spent the rest in one port or another."
I didn't say anything, but it was beginning to add up. I don't know anything about psychology, but I thought there might be something like a reason in what Garrity was telling me for the way Garrity was. Somewhere he'd got the idea that his old man wasn't happy. I doubted it, because I've seen and talked to lots of old retired hands. Most of them had a good life behind them and they were still enjoying the taste of it.
But I didn't argue with Garrity about it. I've got more sense. When a man's got a pet notion, leave it alone. You won't pry him off it and you might get him mad at you. A spaceship's too small to make enemies in.
"Suppose you get married," I asked him. "So you have a place to go, and a girl in it, in one port. How about all the others? Going to take a permanent port watch instead of seeing a little fun?"
"Easy," Garrity said. "I'll just get married in all of them."
"All of them?"
"Well, the ones I'm in most often. Terra City, Chafanor, some other places. I'm thinking of homesteading on one line as soon as I pad on a little seniority."
The notion did have a certain cold practicality about it. I didn't like it, but as far as getting away with it went, he could.