"Don't be that harsh. Dammit! Sally, maybe I am a Napoleon, but scientific accuracy is too important to play fast and loose with, the way they were around here. You know it. You're the only one who didn't relax that vigilance—who saw to it that everything you turned out was without error. I know now that I forgot the human equation—that I was so eager for errorless research that I trod pretty roughshod over a lot of people. But you're guilty too, you know, you had the secret—you managed to balance the equation when everyone else here didn't. Why didn't you help me? Sure, you came in and ranted and raved at me—called me all sorts of names, but you didn't help me, you didn't try to show me the way."
"I—"
"Let me finish," he interrupted her. "I love you, you know—have for a long, long, time. I still need help, Sally. I don't want to keep playing Napoleon and going into exile over and over again. A bigger job with more men under me isn't the answer. When a man is lonely it makes him hard and cruel in circumstances like that. I made all of you here relearn scientific facts, I need to relearn the humanities...." He paused for a moment. "Sally, will you teach me?"
Her eyes were bright with unshed tears and a catch in her throat made the words husky and half-whispered. "I wanted to help—I love you too—but I thought you were arrogant and didn't need me—" She swallowed, controlling a sob. "I'll make it up to you, darling. You won't be alone again—on Phobus or anywhere else in the galaxy."