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purely

psychological basis. There are no germs, no vitamin deficiencies,

nothing to which you would be allergic on the ship."
     
     
If Berryman and Walters could hear me now, McCullough thought briefly.

The trouble was it was so easy to talk like a psychologist . . .
     
     
He went on, "Well now, I realize that being separated from the rest

of humanity by fifty million miles is bad enough. But if you have been

rejected, or feel that you have been rejected by the other men in the

ship, that could be the initial cause of your trouble. Your evident

anxiety over this secret you have uncovered will not have helped matters."
     
     
McCullough had an almost overwhelming urge to scratch his left armpit

through his spacesuit, and another sympathetic itch raged behind his right

knee. He continued, "A rejected person tends to become self-conscious and

much more aware of himself both physically and mentally. Your body becomes

much more sensitive, even hypersensitive, to stimuli which are normally

ignored. Your trouble probably began with an itchy scalp or ear lobe which

you scratched almost without thinking. But gradually, through constant

repetition and irritation, the psychosomatic itch became a real one.
     
     
"This is an extreme oversimplification, of course," McCullough said.

"Doubtless there were many other factors which contributed to your

present sorry state. But right now we should do something positive about

alleviating your present condition -- with something more than lanolin,

since that would relieve only the physical symptoms. Also, since the axiom

that a trouble shared is a trouble halved is so old and true that it was

used before psychology was invented, I would like to know what the other

two are keeping secret which distresses you so much. I'll be discreet,

of course . . ."
     
     
He let the sentence hang, but obviously Hollis needed more coaxing.

McCullough tried a different tack. He said, "What is Morrison like as

a person? And Drew? How have their relations toward you changed since

the beginning of the trip? Be as objective as you can . . ."
     
     
A person could say an awful lot about themselves by the way they talked

about someone else.
     
     
As he began to talk, Hollis may have thought that he was being objective,

and McCullough, too, lost quite a lot of his objectivity as he listened.

He began to feel angry with Morrison and Drew, particularly with the colonel.

For despite his phenomenal brain, Hollis had always been the shy, timid,

eager-to-please type and the necessary allowances should have been made.

As his relations with the other two had steadily worsened, in an attempt

to get on better terms with them again, his timidity had increased to

ridiculous and quite irritating proportions for a grown man. He had

abased himself and fawned and generally carried on like a frightened dog.
     
     
This was not the way Hollis told it, of course. McCullough was reading

between the lines.
     
     
It had started because the colonel and Drew knew each other long before

either of them were connected with astronautics. They had served together

briefly in southeast Asia and Drew had done Morrison some sort of favor.

Hollis had been unable to ascertain whether the favor had been sordid

or sublime, whether it involved white slavery, the black market, or just

saving the colonel's life.
     
     
As the weeks went by, the two had talked together more and more often

about their small war, mentioning people and places and making stupid,

in-group jokes. Hollis was excluded to an increasing extent from these

conversations and when, out of sheer desperation, he tried to join in,

he usually made a mess of it and stopped the conversation stone dead.
     
     
Listening to the physicist, McCullough could not help thinking of his own

ship. He hesitated to make comparisons with the two comedian-psychologists

on P-Two, and the sometimes artificial atmosphere of good cheer they

generated,