"Well, it's official," she said. "We're pulling out."
I studied her wet red bangs and gray eyes beneath matching red brows and remembered what she'd told me about transference back when I was her patient.
"I'm still transferring," I said, to see her blush behind the freckles; and then, "When?"
"Beginning the day after tomorrow," she said, losing the blush rapidly. "They're rushing ships from all over."
"I see."
"... So I thought you'd better know. The sooner you register at the port, the earlier the passage you'll probably be assigned."
I sipped my coffee.
"Thanks. Any idea how long?"
"Two to six weeks is the estimate."
" 'Rough guess' is what you mean."
"Yes."
"Where're they taking everybody?"
"Local pokeys on thirty-two different worlds, for the time being. Of course, this wouldn't apply to you."
I chuckled.
"What's funny?"
"Life," I said. "I'll bet Earth is mad at Sandow."
"They're suing him for breach of contract. He'd warrantied the world, you know."
"I doubt this would be covered by the warranty. How could it?"
She shrugged, then sipped her coffee.
"I don't know. All I know is what I hear. You'd better close up shop and go register if you want to get out early."
"I don't," I said. "I'm getting near to an answer. I'm going to finish the project, I hope. Six weeks might do it."
Her eyes widened, and she lowered the cup.
"That's ridiculous!" she said. "What good will it be if you're dead and nobody knows the answer you find?"
"I'll make it," I said, returning in my mind to the point I had one time wanted to prove. "I think I'll make it."
She stood.
"You get down there and register!"
"That's very direct therapy, isn't it?"
"I wished you'd stayed in therapy."
"I'm sane and stable now," I said.
"Maybe so. But if I have to say you're not, to get you probated and shipped off-world, I will!"
I hit a button on the box on the table, waited perhaps three seconds, hit another.
"... to say you're not, to get you probated and shipped off-world, I will!" said the shrill, recorded voice behind the speaker.
"Thanks," I said. "Try it." She sat down again.
"Okay, you win. But what are you trying to prove?"
I shrugged and drank coffee.
"That everybody's wrong but me," I said, after a time.
"It shouldn't matter," she said, "and if you were a mature adult it wouldn't matter, either way. Also, I think you're wrong."
"Get out," I said softly.
"I've listened to your adolescent fantasies, over and over," she said. "I know you. I'm beginning to think you've got an unnatural death wish as well as that unresolved family problem we-"
I laughed, because it was the only alternative to saying, "Get out" again, in a louder voice.
"Okay," I said. "I'll agree with anything you say about me, but I won't do anything you tell me to do. So consider it a moral victory or something."
"When the time comes, you'll run."
"Sure."
She returned to her coffee.
"You're really getting near to an answer?" she finally said.
"Yes, I really am."
"I'm sorry that it had to happen at just this time."
"I'm not," I said.
She looked about the lab, then out through the quartz windows at the slushy field beyond.