"Why?" she said forlornly.
His singed eyebrows came up. "Why? My purpose is accomplished. You know my intentions. Now I must go out and prepare. I'll be leaving for outer space within the hour. I'll be back in ten months."
He took her to the door of her room. "Good night, Anna," he said.
She stopped him. Her heart was beating too hard. There was in her a sharp emptiness, a terrific sense of frustration. "Kiss me," she said wearily. "You said you were in love with me, so we might as well get that much acquainted."
"I am in love with you," he said. He immediately took her into his arms, kissing her long and hard. Then he released her, looking strangely into her eyes. "Anna," he said, "I shall be back in ten months. I know you'll be here." He went down the stairs. She went into her room. She sat on the edge of the bed. Then she threw herself on the bed and cried, hard, angry sobs. Why had she allowed him to ruin what could have been such a splendid evening? She kicked her shoes off. They hit the wall with two walloping thumps. She lay on her back and laughed at the ceiling with tears coming out of her eyes. What an evening. An evening as strange, as abortive, as cruel as the man who had cut it off so suddenly.
Her eyes snapped open then. She felt something happen inside her, a longing as wide and deep as black space. "Oh no," she said in a tone that was low and explosive. She slowly turned on her side, sniffling.
She couldn't help it. He was nothing, but he was incredible. Ten months....
For years the Asteroid Association had offered a flat rate of one thousand credits to anybody who gave them the location of genuine asteroid-juncture faults. They were engaged in a strictly scientific and commercially useless attempt to show that the asteroids once comprised a large planet between Mars and Jupiter. They needed evidences of lines of fracture showing where two separated asteroids once had been joined; the complete picture would finally give them a complete planet. Harvey had found fifteen such points. The money gave him leeway to pursue other activities.
Forty million miles above the plane of the ecliptic moved his small ship.