"If I can't go with him after my freighter I'm going after it on my own!" Stella said as he closed the door.
Larry put his fingers to his lips for the benefit of the receptionist and swiftly side-stepped to a filing cabinet where he stooped down out of sight.
The next instant the door from Wilson's office burst open again, banging against the wall. Stella's eyes searched the office. She ran to the hall door, and out.
Larry bounded back into Wilson's office. Wilson said, "Whew!" and mopped his brow, then pointed to his private entrance. Larry nodded and left.
It was a world of hard whites and bottomless blacks, with the hard whites so close they gave you the feeling you could reach out and touch them. Then you blinked your eyes and they were holes in infinity through which loneliness poured. That was space. Sure, there was the Earth somewhere aft of the rockets' red glare, and the Moon, looking like high-priced models against a velvet backdrop.
But you didn't look at them, because the stars were points on a tri-di screen, and you were back in school working a problem in navigation and hoping you didn't get a wrong answer.
You loved it—or you went crazy. Larry loved it. Or maybe it wasn't love. It was like a woman. It was in his blood.
He stopped punching the keys of the calculator and used both hands to press the studs controlling the gyro motors, watching the needles of gyro meters until they pointed to the right numbers.
He took several deep breaths, squirming back in his seat against the form-fitting cushion of foam rubber. He made sure his elbows rested securely in their little niches so that his arms wouldn't pull out of their sockets.