Pete was serious about settling down after the short trip to Proxima. At least he was serious about it now. But after that trip was over....
He didn't think about that sort of thing any more. He had tried to puzzle it out a few times, how he could tell a girl he was making one more trip, and mean it, and then one more and then one more until a happy young girl was suddenly a disillusioned embittered old woman. There was a paradox of conscience here that he had given up trying to resolve. When he said he was making one more trip, he meant it. But at the same time he knew that when he came back he'd sign up for another. If he meant what he said when he said it, even though he knew he'd change his mind later—
His conscience was clear.
And of course a man must be practical. His earnings must be invested, and the future provided for. The honeymoon was still new when the insurance agent responded to Pete's call.
"I've always believed in insurance," he told Nancy. "Of course, no amount of money could console me if I came back and found that something had happened to you. But people must prepare for the unpleasant things in life."
"Of course," said Nancy, who never disagreed with her husband. "We have to be sensible about things. I might have an accident, and so might you. We have to face things like that."
The insurance man was a little dazed. He'd never sold a policy nearly as big as the amount Pete had named.
"Nobody's had an accident on an interstellar ship in hundreds of years," he assured Nancy. "The rate for your husband will be negligible—we expect him to be around for a real long time. Now, sir," he told Pete, "your best buy is our family special—the full value to be paid to the survivor. As I said, the cost for you is trivial, and for your wife...."
He thumbed his rate book nervously. Pete wrote a check to pay the policy in full, and the insurance man walked out in a trance, spending his commission.
And Nancy hadn't noticed that Pete's signature had gone on a guarantee that he wouldn't resign from the interstellar service for at least two hundred years, objective Earth time.