You laughed, but it was a sad, fearful laugh. "No, I shouldn't be thinking it. You'd hate me if I told you, and I wouldn't want that."
"I could never hate you."
"It—it's about the stars," you said very softly. "I understand why you want to go to them. Mickey and I used to dream about them when we were kids. Of course I was a girl, so it was just a game to me. But once I dreamed of going to England. Oh, it was going to be so wonderful. I lived for months, just thinking about it.
"One summer we went. I had fun. I saw the old buildings and castles, and the spaceports and the Channel Tube. But after it was over, I realized England wasn't so different from America. Places seem exciting before you get to them, and afterward they're not really."
I frowned. "And you mean it might be the same with the stars? You think maybe I haven't grown up yet?"
Anxiety darkened your features. "No, it'd be good to be a spaceman, to see the strange places and make history. But is it worth it? Is it worth the things you'd have to give up?"
I didn't understand at first, and I wanted to ask, "Give up what?"
Then I looked at you and the promise in your eyes, and I knew.
All through the years I'd been walking down a single, narrow path.
Government boarding school, the Academy, my eyes always upward and on the stars.