V
It was a sixty-hour trip from Ganymede to Mars. Each hour was a bit more trying than the one before.
Norma bedeviled him in every way she knew. She found fault with his cooking but refused to go near the galley herself. She objected to the brand of cigarettes he smoked. She made scathing remarks whenever he touched an instrument, reminding him of his presumed incompetence as a pilot. She scorned him for refusing to open his hold and bring her the love lotus she craved.
By the time Farradyne set the Lancaster Eighty-One down at Sun Lake City on Mars, he had almost arrived at the point where her voice was just so much noise.
He landed after the usual discussion of landing space and beacon route with Sun Lake Tower, and he found time to wonder whether the word about his affiliation had been spread yet. The Tower operator paid him no more attention than if he had been running in and out of that spaceport for years.
He pressed the button that opened the spacelock and ran out the landing ramp.
"This is it," he said flatly.
"This is what?"
"The end of the line."