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once in ten days or so.”
    Peake was staring at the window, watching the space station come into sight again and slowly roll across their field of vision. Was Jimson there? They were as cut off from one another as if they had been at opposite ends of the universe, separated by a slowly lengthening string which would eventually snap and part them irrevocably. Already it was irrevocable. He felt desperately alone, surrounded by these five strangers. Yet not wholly strangers, either; he had known them all since kindergarten, many of them had been his friends until, in the last two or three years, he had focused all his attention and awareness on Jimson. Could they be his friends again? He said, “I think it would be a good idea to schedule one meal a day together. Not so often that we'd get claustrophobic, not so far apart that we'd get out of touch.”
    Teague said diffidently, "I wouldn't mind getting to-
    gether once a day. Only I don't think it ought to be a meal. Because if we get together once a day it's going to turn into a — a kind of gripe session; we'll want to get everything off our chests. And I hate to eat while I'm arguing — or vice versa," he added with a grin.
    “I think we ought to have a once-a-day conference, whether it's a meal or not,” Ching said. “Call it a gripe session, brainstorming, business meeting, scientific conference, or whatever. But we all ought to get together once a day.”
    “Is there any reason we have to keep a standard 24-hour day and night?” Moira asked. “I tend to be a night person, myself, and I'm never really awake before midnight. And I happen to know — because I roomed next door to her for two years — that Ching's awake at the crack of dawn, and is asleep by the time I'm beginning to feel halfway human! Here we could have a round-the-clock schedule not tied in to somebody else's idea of when people ought to wake up and go to sleep!”
    Peake said, “Biologically speaking — and speaking as a medical man — I think we need circadian rhythms maintained as long as we can possibly manage it. If there's one thing I've learned about space medicine, it's this: Earth man, homo sapiens, is firmly tied in to the rhythms of his native planet's rotations. Biology is destiny, at least to that extent. We need a 24-hour cycle, give or take a little one way or the other. And while we're on that subject, do all of you girls menstruate?”
    “If you think that makes any difference —” Moira began angrily, but Fontana interrupted. “Hold on, Moira; the question is purely for practical reasons. Free-fall— and we can hardly keep the whole ship De-Magged to one gravity all the time — does peculiar things to hormones, both male and female.”
    “That's right,” Peake said, “and I was thinking we
     could work out a duty roster which would allow any woman who's menstruating to work inside the De-magged areas for comfort. The question is medical, not sexist.”
    Fontana shrugged. “It's academic for me,” she said. “I opted for hysterectomy when they offered it to all of us at fifteen. I knew that after a year in deep space there was a fifty-fifty chance I'd be sterile anyhow, so it seemed a lot of trouble for the next thirty years, for nothing. And it seemed a good idea to put it out of my power to have any second thoughts on the subject. I chose once and for all.”
    “I didn't,” Moira said. “After reading up on both sides of the question, I decided I'd prefer having natural to synthetic hormones. But I'm not asking for special treatment.”
    Ching smiled, a little grimly. “I wasn't given the option. I knew if I didn't make Ship, they'd want my genes. But I don't want special treatment; I think if any of us had severe menstrual problems, they'd take that into account before sending us into zero-gee work. I've always been boringly normal; if I have trouble, I might ask for a day off now and then, but I doubt I will. Let's leave it until the problem arises.” She