"Not particularly. There are too many people. Too many complications. A man can't think straight out there, with all that confusion. I don't know...."
"I said you were for space. When you've been around as long as I have, you'll be able to smell 'em, too. You think I'm kidding?"
"Probably not, sir."
"There is security and security, Allerton. It can't be explained to a man. He's got to find out for himself. Alone in space, with the ship and a frontier vaster than all the frontiers before it in history, a certain type of man can be secure. He's the man who's lost in a crowd. Confused and muddled by convention, he's not a hero. Basically, he's a lonesome man. Strangely, the psychologists tell you he's happy then—when he's lonesome. You see what I mean, Allerton?"
"No, sir. Not entirely."
"Forget that formal stuff. Well, you'll learn. The important thing is this: there aren't enough real spacemen to go around. A normal man doesn't give up life for dedication. A spaceman does. You belong to a strange breed, Allerton. Want to talk about your vacation?"
"Absolutely not," Allerton said curtly, then apologized. The thought of it, the thought of stepping off the Eros again and feeling the ground of Earth underfoot, wet ground sometimes, or dry and dusty, or covered with a white mantle of snow, always unpredictable, was distasteful.
"You're one of the breed now," the Captain repeated.
"You may close the Allerton file," said the government psychologist to his secretary.