" Jen turned back to her desk and sat down in the chair behind it. She slumped over the desk and rubbed her forehead. "Fine. Thanks for telling me. I'...l tell the Admiral you're clean. Dissmised." Sam took one step toward the desk. "As for me avoiding you..." Jen slowly looked up to meet Sam's eyes. "I felt we needed space." "Space?" "You said it yourself, up until a couple of days ago, we were inseparable. It wasn't going to continue on Earth. You were going to join back up with your captain,. Up until a short time ago, I've never told anybody about my problem. I'vealways been afraid they would decide I'm so broken I can't be trustedwith my job.But recently I managed to find someone I could trust to talk to.Helva, "the ship who sings" herself.I cant even describe how much of a relief it is to talk to someone aboutthis.It all happened a week ago ...Helva had arrived at my city's spaceport, and once the day's bustleslowed down, I risked having a conversation with her after listening. When he finally awoke he again took a veryhot shower and tried his best to wash away the remaining memories of hislong visit into Sissy hood. He was so thankful it was all over. Heswore to himself he would never do anything like that again.He did manage to make the lunch and the keynote speaker. His friendskidded him mercilessly about missing the morning session. "Must havebeen a long, exhausting night," one said leeringly. Jim winced as hethought, "If you only knew! If you only. Then there's my response to, "You're just like a real woman," which is, "No I'm not. But thank you so much for thinking so."This is often followed by my all-time favorite clarification: "Yes, robots really are different than humans, so assumptions about how a human would feel or react in this situation may not apply to us at all."I don't usually add that we all know good treatment and respect when we experience it. Or that in some ways we're very much like the humans we're supposed to.