He said, "Chief, we could start over. We could forget the nasty things that have been said."
"I have forgotten them," I said. "Once I enter something in the log, I forget it."
"All that happened you entered in the log?"
"All. Including your earlier request to delay our return an hour." I paused. "The disciplinary board can read whatever inferences they want from that, in the light of what happened later."
"I see. The report would put Van in the soup, too, Chief."
"I suppose."
"That'll lose you two good men."
"Will it?"
Silence for over an hour, and then Horse said, "Before the company filled you full of that discipline garbage, were you human, Sam? Did you dream of a better world, a normal world, a world with women?"
"Some things we outgrow," I said. "I'm doing exactly what I want to do."