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"What are we to do?" asked Morgan resentfully. "Go outside into space?"

 

 

"We thought of speaking to everybody about it," said Betty, "but what
could we say? It would be nonsense to ask anyone's permission . . ."

 

 

"Of course," I agreed. I told them what I had said to Miss Wallace. They
brightened, glad that Authority -- that was me -- didn't think they had
done anything wrong.

 

 

"You mean we can just say we're married," said Betty, "and we are?"

 

 

"If you like," I said. I was having a good look at them for the first time.
Morgan was tall and thin, very young and immature. He was a nice-looking
boy -- too shy, of course, but with a friendly grin nevertheless. Betty
was very small and slight, a neat little figure with corn-colored hair
and small, very white hands. She wore blue slacks and a yellow sweater.

 

 

At the moment Morgan's nose was red and his eyes watery; Betty was flushed
and shivered frequently, her eyes too bright. They had chosen rather
unromantic circumstances for their nuptials. But they insisted they felt
perfectly well.

 

 

"Congratulations, anyway," I said with a grin, and went looking for Leslie.
I was thinking more of Morgan's cold, Betty's temperature, and the headaches
of the others than of the question of informal marriage. The marriage problem
was already solved, as far as I was concerned. However, something would have
to be done about the other one.

 

 

As I swam into the hydroponics plant Leslie grabbed the hem of her frock,
which was floating airily somewhere in the region of her fourth rib.

 

 

"Doesn't make the slightest difference," I said. "Take it off altogether --
haven't you ever worn a bathing costume?"

 

 

"Yes," she said, tucking her skirt between her legs, "but only in the
appropriate circumstances."

 

 

"These
are
the appropriate circumstances." I started to explain what
I meant. However, her mind was obviously on something else. I sighed,
abandoned the subject for the moment, and asked what was worrying her.

 

 

She was breathing hard, obviously nervous. "I want to talk to you, Bill,"
she said breathlessly.

 

 

I waited. I knew at least part of why she was nervous. The last time
we had been together without other people around had been an incident
neither of us wanted to remember.

 

 

"I'm not sure you understand why I threw myself at your head," she said,
with an effort. "It's true, I suppose, I was trying to bribe you. I wanted
to live -- oh, I know I was quite wrong. I've thought since about what
you said. I misunderstood you completely. I -- "

 

 

She wasn't getting anywhere. "Must we talk about it, Leslie?" I asked
quietly. "I'll forget it ever happened, if you like."

 

 

"I don't want that. I'm trying to explain. . . . You see, I didn't know you.
I wanted to live. I wasn't honest, like Pat. What was it she said?
'I just carry on being myself without trying to buy myself a place on
the ship by being someone else.' I didn't believe that at the time,
but I did later. Anyway, I wasn't like that, and I knew it. I wasn't as
honest as Pat, but at least I was honest with myself. I wanted to live
more than anything. If you could be bribed, I was ready to bribe you."

 

 

She looked at me steadily, anxiously, trying to make me understand.
"I thought it out carefully, and made sure I meant what I was doing.
I had only one thing to bribe you with, and when I really thought of it
honestly, it didn't seem to matter much to me. I know I was wrong --
the question is, how wrong was I?"

 

 

"Not terribly wrong," I said, smiling faintly. "But I still think the
least said about the whole thing the better."

 

 

"No," Leslie insisted. "Because if I meant it then, I should mean it now.
Do you want me?"

 

 

I frowned. "That's mad," I said flatly.

 

 

"I don't think so," she said stubbornly. "It couldn't be a question of money,
because money won't matter for quite a while now. But suppose it was money.
Suppose I offered you a thousand dollars to do something, and you did it
without taking the money. I'd still want to give you the thousand dollars.
I'd feel you'd have to take it so -- "

 

 

I burst out laughing. Leslie couldn't see the joke at first, but after
a while she was laughing too. It was a ridiculous situation.

 

 

At last I said: "Leslie, I'm still turning down your bribe. I don't want you,
you owe me nothing, and if you're trying to sell yourself I'm not in the
market. Is that clear?"

 

 

"You're making a joke of it," she said, laughing despite herself,
"and I was perfectly serious."

 

 

"Are you quite satisfied that you're not under any obligation to me?"

 

 

"Yes, if you say so.

 

 

"Right. Now that that's settled -- Leslie, will you marry me?"

 

 

She stopped smiling abruptly and looked at me in amazement.

 

 

"If you feel you owe me anything," I said, "the answer's no. Or if you
don't think you could possibly love me, ever. But don't say no just because
you don't love me now."

 

 

"I do love you now," she whispered.

 

 

She couldn't, really; she hadn't had an opportunity. But if she thought
she loved me, all the better.

 

 

We kissed, and floated in the air in each other's arms.

 

 

 

 

Later I told her what I'd had in mind when I went looking for her.
She thought over what I said, and agreed. We decided to set an example
right away.

 

 

I stripped to trunks and Leslie took off her dress, stockings, and shoes.
"Do you think this will make enough difference?" she asked.

 

 

"No, we'll have to do other things too."

 

 

We clasped hands, pushed off from a wall, and soared into the lounge
together.

 

 

"Hold everything," I said, when everyone looked up, startled, "we're not
starting an interplanetary branch of the SunA. I think we should all strip,
and if anyone wants to go naked altogether, so much the better."

 

 

They still stared. So I explained. "Why has everyone a headache?" I asked
patiently. "Why has Betty a fever? Why has Morgan a cold?"

 

 

Sammy, Miss Wallace, and Leslie knew what I was talking about. No one else.
It's amazing sometimes how obvious a thing has to become before people
will see it.

 

 

"The air in here," I said, "is kept fresh enough, but the temperature is
going up and up." I pointed to the white panels on the walls. "That's
neutralex, and it just doesn't conduct heat at all. It's rather too
efficient, in fact -- combustion's going on in all of us, we're cooking
food, and none of that heat's getting away. So the temperature's going
up a degree at a time, and it'll keep going up until we find some way
to stop it."

 

 

"Taking off our clothes won't help much," Morgan objected, and sneezed.

 

 

"True," I said, "but it's a start. The unhealthiest conditions occur when
the air is warm and motionless. The skin isn't cooled and dried as it
should be. In here, the hydroponics plant handles excess carbon dioxide
well enough, and the water purifier mops up quite a lot of water vapor
from the atmosphere. But the circulation set up by the hydroponics
aeration plant is too slow to make much difference, when the temperature's
so high. What we must do somehow is step up the circulation, bring down
the temperature, and stop wearing clothes that we don't need any more."

 

 

Sammy threw off his sweater and pants. I caught his eye and he came over
and joined Leslie and me.

 

 

"Wasn't there any provision for this?" Sammy demanded.

 

 

"Not that I know of. There's nothing we can use as a fan,
but we may be able to lower the temperature."

 

 

"How?"

 

 

I swam to the wall and tapped the white paneling. "This neutralex,"
I said, "is simply a barrier cutting off all heat. There's no chink in it.
But if we make one, we'll radiate heat at that spot."

 

 

Leslie frowned. "Space is at absolute zero, isn't it?" she objected.
"Seems to me we'll lose too much heat too fast."

 

 

I shook my head. "Behind the panels is the shell of the ship. It's absorbing
heat from the sun, more or less equalizing it through its whole volume
by conduction, and radiating it again on the side away from the sun.
Remember, there's no conduction or convection, only radiation. And balancing
any heat we radiate, there's the quite considerable amount of heat radiation
we're getting from the sun."

 

 

We set to work unscrewing one of the panels. As I worked, I glanced now and
then at the others behind us in the lounge to see how they were reacting.

 

 

Perhaps I gave this too much importance, but as I saw it, though it might
not make an enormous difference whether everybody on the ship stripped
down or not, this, like the marriage question, was an index of their
adaptability. They were being asked to change their behavior and ideas
slightly, because circumstances had changed.

 

 

Immediately Sammy and Leslie had seen what I was getting at, they agreed --
they adapted. No argument. Jim Stowe and Bessie too -- Jim looked at his
father, received no guidance, and threw off his shirt. Bessie didn't care
in the slightest. She had no idea why we were taking off our clothes, but
she obliged too, and nobody stopped her. She left only her white panties,
and then, after a long, thoughtful stare at Leslie, began gravely to fashion
herself a brassiere out of the sash of her frock. To Bessie this was
another game.

 

 

But the others whispered together and showed no sign of following our
example. Well, if they didn't believe what I said, or really didn't think
it mattered, I didn't mind. If, however, they were stubbornly refusing
to change their ideas, it didn't augur well for a future in which they
might have to do that every day for years.

 

 

 

 

 

 

4

 

 

It was on the eighth day that we found the prophecies had been right
and the sun had really stepped up its output.

 

 

We had licked the temperature difficulty, more or less. We removed enough
panels to set the balance right, and I tinkered with the hydroponics
aeration plant to increase the circulation in the ship generally, watched
by an anxious Harry Phillips. The hydroponics plant was his baby, and
he didn't quite trust me with it.

 

 

Despite my assurances, Leslie and Sammy remained afraid that we would all
freeze if we left the panels off -- until at last, after it had been done,
they saw that a nice balance had been achieved, and the temperature went
neither up nor down. They also, incidentally, remained convinced for a
long time that having cold spots on the walls would set up a strong air
circulation and we wouldn't have to bother about that.

 

 

I explained carefully that it wasn't the expansion of heated air, or the
contraction of cooled air, that set up circulation. It was a question of
density -- and on the lifeship, density just did not exist. Density is
mass per unit volume; volume still existed, could still change, but there
was no weight. Heat air on a weightless ship and it certainly expands,
but it doesn't rise. It expands outward, evenly, and the compressed
air around it tries to push it back evenly. There's no draft -- light
a match where there's no weight and no air circulation, hold it still,
and it promptly goes out.

 

 

When we had achieved our temperature balance, this was clear enough to
Sammy and Leslie. We had a slow circulation, without which the measures
we took wouldn't have been effective at all. The cooling areas had no
effect whatever on the air circulation of the ship. On the mere movement
of air they had some, since as the air cooled it contracted and dragged
more air in. These, however, were only eddies and had nothing to do with
the movement of air round and round the ship.

 

 

On the eighth day our temperature control was functioning and checked.
There had been no significant variation in more than twenty-four hours.

 

 

Sammy, Leslie, the two children, and I were still going around wearing as
little as possible, and we were still the only ones who were. Morgan's
cold, Betty's fever, and the general headaches had all cleared up,
so perhaps the other five thought it was now unnecessary to follow
our example.

 

 

Then suddenly it was hot. It couldn't have been sudden, really, but it
certainly seemed so. The temperature had been adjusted so that while
it wasn't cold it was always cool, certainly for those of us who were
lightly clad. Leslie was in the hydroponics plant, Sammy and I working
on the water purifier, and we didn't notice the change until we found
ourselves sweating.

 

 

"The sun!" Sammy exclaimed.

 

 

We knew at once what he meant. Eight days ago had been deadline; the sun's
change might have occurred when it was supposed to, for all we knew.
It was behind us -- the only way we had of looking at it was to put on
the space suit and go out at the air lock to look back.

 

 

The change inside the lifeship, however, was so marked that we knew almost
to the minute when the sun entered its new phase. The alloy outer skin
of the ship, of course, was absorbing extra heat; the balance we had
created was gone, and the temperature went up again.