"Are you really going to go? Or are you going to find some jack-surgeon who'll make your face pretty for a few dirty credits?"
"Stop it. I mean it. I'm going. I'll be gone a year on this signup. By then I'll have enough cash piled up on various planets to be a rich man. I'll get it all together and get a mansion on Venus, and have Greenie slaves."
It was getting toward noon. The sun, high in the sky, burst through the shutters and lit up the dingy room.
"I'll stay here," Laney said. "You're going to Pluto?"
He nodded.
"Kanaday was supposed to be going to Pluto. He was heading there when that explosion finished his foot. He never got there after that."
"Poor old Kanaday," Rolf said.
"I'll miss him too. I guess I'll have to run the boarding-house now. For a while. Will you come back here when your year's up?"
"I suppose so," Rolf said without looking up. "This town is no worse than any of the other Spacertowns. No better, but no worse." He slowly lifted his head and looked at her as she stood there facing him.
"I hope you come back," she said.