"Because I can't be an adolescent all my life, Uncle Isadore," I had replied stiffly. "I would like to get into some solid line of work and be a good citizen."
"Phooey!" he'd said. But he had let me do what I'd wanted. It was because of this that I had felt duty bound to answer his call for help.
I'd not felt duty bound to take all the opportunities he'd tried to force on me when I got out of school. Mining the semi-solid seas of Alphard kappa. Fur trading on Procyon beta. And a hundred others, all obviously doomed to failure unless there was one lucky chance.
"But I'm happy here with my little room and my little job," I kept telling Uncle Isadore.
"You only think you're happy because you don't know any better," he kept telling me.
Only, now that he was dead, he seemed to have me where he wanted me. Now that nothing could matter to him any longer.
"Maybe he was getting senile," Rene suggested.
"Uncle Izzy always said he'd rather die than—he did die," I replied, suddenly recalling myself to the present and the open outside port of the ship. I realized how reluctant I was to go in. It was one thing to admit Uncle Izzy was dead—I cherished no great affection for him—but it was something else to have to face his dead body.
"Would you mind going in first?" I asked Rene.
He shrugged and shouldered the inside door open.