Pete was spending half his waking hours with Nancy and the other half in the men's beauty parlor. Not that he was old—a little prematurely gray and somewhat wrinkled from the hard sun of space and the unkind atmospheres of alien planets. And he had his contact lenses changed—paper was scarce in this era and they were using finer print to stretch the supply. But he was still young. He studied the full length mirror and decided he'd pass for thirty-five. His actual age—that would be hard to guess. Someday he'd look into the company records and figure it out. But mentally, he told himself, I'm a young man, even though I walked through this city five hundred years ago. A young man in love.
They knew in this era how to make it nice for young people in love, if you could afford one of the better places. Pete sat across the table from Nancy at a tiny table on a roof far above the city. The room was crowded, but some trick of design made it seem that they were alone together. There was real music played by real people. Some of the melodies were old ones that brought a mood of nostalgia to the time man, with memories of past loves. But then he looked across at Nancy, with her innocent laughing eyes, and the beauty of her brought a lump to his throat that drove out all the small loves of the past. This was it. This time he was really in love.
"Pete," she said, "don't you ever get tired of it? Of jumping through the ages, coming back to find your old friends gone, being a stranger in a strange world? For instance, how about me? You'll be back from Sirius or Altair some day, a year or two older, and I'll be an old woman? How does it really feel?"
Pete took her hands and stared earnestly into her eyes. She was more serious than he'd ever seen her as she gazed back at him.
"It's not the right way to live, Nancy. A man doesn't really live, in the real meaning of life. A man needs a woman, a wife he can come home to." He squeezed her hands gently. "Nancy, will you marry me?"
Her hands trembled in his grasp.
"I will, Pete—oh, Pete, I've been so hoping—and so afraid. But, Pete, your job...?"
He smiled reassuringly.
"I'm signed up for a trip, but it's only a short one—that planet of Proxima Centauri they just discovered is on the list for a complete survey. But I'll be back in—seven, eight years. Then we can really settle down."
She bent over the table and kissed him.
"I'll wait, Pete."
&qu............