"That," he said bitterly, "was human damnfoolishness botching up the equations. Too many lobbyists have holdings on the Moon and don't want to risk not being able to go there in a hurry. So they haven't passed legislation to keep physically unfit people off spaceships. One of the passengers got aboard the Elsinore on somebody else's validation—which meant that nobody knew he was taking endocrine treatments to put hair on his brainless head and restore his—Oh, the Jaywalker!" Jack spat in disgust. "Anyway, he was the kind of idiot who never realizes that certain glandular conditions are fatal in free fall."
Even now she distinctly recalled the beginnings of the interplanetary cold that always seeped into the warm house when he talked about space, when he was about to leave her for it. And this time it was worse than ever before.
He went on remorselessly, "Once the Elsinore reached the free-fall flight, where power could be shut off, the skipper had to put the ferry into an axial spin under power, creating artificial gravity to save the worthless life of that fool. So of course he lost his trajectory, and had to warp her in as best he could, without passing the Moon or crashing into it. And of course you're not listening."
"It's all so dull!" she had flared, and then, "How can I be interested in what some blundering space-jockey did?"
"Blun—Marcia, you really don't realize what that skipper did was the finest piece of shiphandling since mankind got off the ground."
"Was it?" she'd yawned. "Could you do it?"
"I—like to think I could," he said. "I'd hate to have to try."
She'd shrugged. "Then it can't be very difficult, darling."
She hadn't meant to be so cruel. Or so stupid. But when they were quarreling, or when he talked that repugnant, dedicated, other-world garble, something always went cold and furious and—lonely inside her, and made her fight back unfairly.
After he'd gone—for good, he said—her anger had sustained her for a few weeks. Then, bleakly, she knew she'd go to the ends of Earth for Jack. Or even to the Moon....