On nice days, Pete sits in a rocking chair on the porch with the other old men. He doesn't bother to dye his hair any more and he reads now with a thick glass, complaining about the small type they use nowadays. The attendants laugh off his irritability, and some of the visitors who come to see the other old men don't mind listening to his stories about the interstellar service. When it gets toward dusk, he looks into the sky sometimes as the stars appear. Centaurus isn't really there, not here in the northern hemisphere, but he looks anyway. Out there in space, his wife is doing a man's job. Wonderful woman, Elsie.
Not Elsie—Nancy. How could he have made that mistake. Nancy, a laughing young girl who had grown swiftly into a strong mature woman defending her man and her ............