Watching someone play chess was often more fun. It wasn't as engaging and instead acted as background video. What a decent way to make money Pete thought. Could he do it for the rest of his life? Probably not. Nobody could retire in 

Spacecity

. They'd surely send you down by the time you hit maybe 45 or so. This is why he has asked Keith the question.

But maybe they wouldn't need to force people to go back down. After all who would choose to stay up here that long. They would surely volunteer to return to earth themselves.

Pete wasn't like Keith. He could tell Keith didn't have anyone down on the dirt waiting on him. Pete did have many people. His family and friends had thought he was crazy for enlisting to come up here. But to Pete he would do anything so long as it was temporary. Two years wasn't a short time, but it wouldn't be a large chunk of his life. He would return and be like "i did that." good enough for him. Plus after graduating college, he had stayed a few years in the college town with his old friend and was starting to get sick of them. So why not come up to space he had thought.