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him pull hard at his lip.
    “Don’t,” Jean said, slapping his hand.
    He put his arm down at his side, His fingers played with the loose material of his pants.
    “What’s the matter?” she asked him.
    He was afraid to tell her, afraid that he had done something wrong.
    “What is it? You can tell me.” Jean smiled at him. She had a nice smile, but this wasn’t her nicest. Her nicest was when she opened her mouth and showed her teeth. This smile was just straight across her lips. The look in Jean’s eyes made his throat want to move a little.
    “What the hell’s the matter with him?” Martingale asked.
    “He’s scared, Bill,” she said, “We’re all scared.”
    “We’re all scared,” Sweet Tooth repeated. “We’re all scared,” he said in a little bitty voice.
    Jean leaned down to him so close he could smell her perfume. “What is it, Sweetie? What’s bothering you?” Her voice was warm. It sounded as good as his stuffed rabbit felt when he hugged it.
    It sounded so good that he told her. “Home,” he said and pointed to the place that was getting smaller and smaller every minute.
    “He’s still in touch with the base,” Jean told Martingale.
    “Home,” Sweet Tooth said and wailed.
    “Yeah. Yeah. Play navigator for a little longer, kid,” Martingale said. “Your holograph’s out.”
    “Home,” Sweet Tooth said, stretching out his arms to the place where home was disappearing. His fingers wriggled on the ends of his hands.
    “Bill will get the ship moving soon, Sweetie. And you can point to where home is and we’ll go there, okay? We’ll be there in a little while.” Jean took his hands down. She held them. It felt good, but not good enough.
    “Home’s going away,” Sweet Tooth said.
    Jean and Martingale looked at each other. Martingale’s mouth went open with a plop. Then Martingale stared at Sweet Tooth. His eyes were cold and dead the way the stars looked out of the triglas. “Oh, Jesus Christ,” Martingale said.
    Jean took Sweet Tooth by the hand and led him back from the bridge to the passenger cabin.
    It smelled in the cabin, and it was all red, too. When Sweet Tooth saw where the red had come from he started to scream. Jean had to hold him again. She made him sit down and then she threw a blanket over Dunaway. On the other side of the cabin Larry was making noises and his leg was twisted up under him. She gave Larry a shot.
    “Dunaway,” Larry said. Larry’s voice wasn’t soft and nice like it usually was. It was little and sounded squeezed the way toothpaste goes out of the tube. Sweet Tooth thought maybe the shot had hurt. “Oh, shit. Poor Dunaway.”
    Jean was holding his hand just like she did when Sweet Tooth had to have a shot.
    “Jesus Christ! My leg.” He was crying. Sweet Tooth stared at him hard. He had never seen a man cry before. It made him feel odd in his tummy the way the tumbling of the ship had done.
    “Pain’ll be gone in a minute.”
    Dunaway was still leaking a little, The blanket was red. The floor was wet around him.
    “What happened?”
    “Martingale got us too close to Io’s field.”
    Larry had stopped crying. He looked over at Sweet Tooth.
    “No,” Jean said. “It wasn’t Sweet Tooth’s fault.”
    “Martingale. That stupid, egotistical bastard,” he said.
    “Don’t say that,” Sweet Tooth told him, putting his hands over his ears.
    “Sorry, Hummer.” Larry tried to smile. Sweet Tooth smiled back. He hoped his smile looked better than Larry’s.
    But Sweet Tooth couldn’t keep his eyes away from the blanket Dunaway was wrapped in. “Sick,” he said to Jean. “Dunaway’s sick.”
    “Real sick, Sweetie,” Jean told him without looking his way.
    “Sick,” Sweet Tooth said out of a throat that seemed too dry.
    Jean didn’t pay any attention. “We need to get you strapped in the chair, Larry. Can you get up?”
    Larry acted drunk the way Martingale had once when he had gotten in real bad trouble. Sweet Tooth was scared