"Yes, sir." Matt meandered along, telling as much as he could remember. "So you see," he concluded, "it was a lot of little things. I was home-but I was a stranger. We didn't talk the same language."
Wong chuckled. "I'm not laughing at you," he apologized. "It isn't funny. We all go through it-the discovery that there's no way to go back. It's part of growing up- but with spacemen it's an especially acute and savage process."
Matt nodded. "I'd already gotten that through my thick head. Whatever happens I won't go back-not to stay. I might go into the merchant service, but I'll stay in space."
"You're not likely to flunk out at this stage, Matt."
"Maybe not, but I don't know yet that the Patrol is the place for me. That's what bothers me."
"Well... can you tell me about it?"
Matt tried. He related the conversation with his fattier and his mother that had gotten them all upset. "It's this: if it comes to a show down, I'm expected to bomb my own home town. I'm not sure it's in me to do it. Maybe I don't belong here."
"Not likely to come up, Matt. Your father was right there."
"That's not the point. If a Patrol officer is loyal to his oath only when, it's no skin off his own nose, then the whole system breaks down."
Wong waited before replying. "If the prospect of bombing your own town, your own family, didn't worry you, I'd have you out of this ship within the hour-you'd be an utterly dangerous man. The Patrol doesn't expect a man to have godlike perfection. Since men are imperfect, the Patrol works on the principle of calculated risk. The chance of a threat to the System coming from your hometown in your lifetime is slight; the chance that you might be called on to carry out the attack is equally slight-you might be away on Mars. Taking the two chances together you have something close to zero.