SHE FELT she must lift her head neatly and take a deep, noiseless breath and relax her eyes here for a moment, for all the aching it suddenly brought up inside her...

I KNOW A LOT of people must have lectured to you about the adjustments that have to be made when you move into a sorority house, and I agree wholeheartedly with all of them. In fact, the only trouble is that there are some adjustments that are always overlooked. Screaming is one of them...

I SAT IN T H E BARN WINDOW. It was Friday night - the first night I'd been home for three months—the first night for three months that I'd seen my brother, Rog, or helped him with the chores or sat in the barn window like this with my knees propped up in front of me. I leaned my head against the pitted side sill and looked up...

JESS GARVEY made out that he thought lightly of me, calling me no more than a cosmic crap shooter, a blind gambler in the infinite casino of space, a feather blown by the lips of those old, old sisters, the fates. He mocked me now as I stood in my control room, before my digamma lever, saying that I was for all the worlds like an idiot before a dekakred slot machine, and that I had traveled a long way for the simple sake of putting my hand to a lever and taking a chance...

SETTLE DOWN, FRIEND. Unpack the suitcase with the airline stickers and names of strange hotels framed in palm trees. Take off those worn shoes, polished in every shoe shine shop between Boston and Bangkok...