"Yes," he said. He settled back and rested against the bulkhead.
There was silence for a while, two young people, hand in hand, sitting in silence.
"Here," she said, "feel." She pressed his hand against the bulkhead. "See how cool it is?"
"Yes," she said, "I know. There's nothing but space out there." She squeezed his hand. "But just a little while ago, before you came, I was sitting here thinking. And I thought that wind must feel like that. I mean, not how it _feels_, exactly, but how it makes _you_ feel. Wild and free. Without any bulkheads to keep you from walking and walking."
He shook his head. "Little dreamer," he whispered.
She frowned prettily. "Don't you feel it, too?"
Johnny Nine pressed his hand to the bulkhead again. "Yes, I guess maybe I do. In a way."
"Of course you do! You've just got to. You can't _help_ it! Put your cheek close against the bulkhead and you can almost feel the wind blowing on your face. I can. And if I try hard enough, I can almost smell the fields of flowers all in bloom and hear birds singing, like they were singing from far away.... And I can--"
"You've been reading again," he interrupted with a smile.
"Uh-huh," she said dreamily. "I have.... And when I finished, I came down here, and I thought about it, and I hoped you'd come so we could talk. It was poetry; it was--beautiful....
"You know, Johnny, I'd like to write poetry. If I had the sky and the birds and the rivers and the mountains all to write about."
After a moment, Johnny Nine said, "Go ahead, tell me what the poems were about."
[Illustration: They envisioned themselves running hand in hand, with the wind whispering gently....]
"Well...." She drew out the word slowly. "It's not what they were about, exactly. It's what they said, not out loud, but down deep. It's like getting a present that means an awful lot to you; it's not the present, but the way it makes your nose tickle and your stomach feel." She smiled wistfully.
"They were all written a long time ago, even before the First Generation, by men back on Earth, but they seemed to be written just for us.... One was about a bird, and how it made the poet feel to watch it fly and hear it sing; it made him feel all warm inside.... And one was about a young girl who worked in the fields, reaping grain...." That image seemed to reverberate in her mind, for she was quiet a moment, as if to listen for the fading echoes.