we'd achieved escape velocity from Earth that I saw the girl again. I'd decided to wander into the lounge and try to locate her. It would be an easy task if she were present, what with her startling good looks. But it turned out to be even simpler than that. She came to me. I was just easing myself out of my couch, when my cabin door opened and closed. And locked. That last part intrigued me even before I turned about. I was wondering what sort of menace I had to meet, and bewailing the fact that the collapser was still in my luggage, when I saw who my visitor was. I started to smile, but the smile left as I saw the saw-edged steak knife in her hand. "Listen, whoever you are!" she said. Her voice was low, angrily intense, but still a pleasure to hear, somehow. "I'm listening, I assure you!" I said, politely. "A voice like yours doesn't caress these tired old eardrums every day." She accorded my compliment a smile, but it was a bleak one, and there was a certain wry lift to her left eyebrow. "Very suave, I'm sure," she said. "But I'm not in the mood, thank you. Now, you just sit down on your bunk and behave, and--" "Mind if I get a cigarette?" I asked, gesturing toward my traveling case. I tried to be casual about it, but I must have failed. I lose my head around women, as I've said. "I'll get them for you," she said, waving the knife's glittering blade at me. I moved away and sat on the edge of my bunk. She flicked the clasp open, and spread the two halves apart. There were two shirts and some underwear in the case, plus the collapser. Not a cigarette to be seen. She looked at me, narrow-eyed. "I don't smoke," I explained weakly. "You Amnesty-bearers!" she grated between even, white teeth. "Ready to destroy everybody with impunity, aren't you! You wouldn't even wait to find out what I wanted!" "I haven't said a word," I pointed out delicately. "You lied about the cigarettes," she accused. "How would you treat a stranger who burst into your cabin with an unsheathed knife?" I said, exasperated.
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