She looked down at the knife, and reddened. "Maybe I was a bit abrupt about this. It's just that--" Her face suddenly crinkled up, and her deep blue-violet eyes burst into tears. Then the knife fell to the carpet, and her face was buried in her hands. I leaned forward and removed the knife from within her reach, then took her by the shoulders.

She whimpered hopelessly, between shuddering sobs, "Am I under arrest?"

"Depends," I said. "Depends entirely on why you came in here like this. And what my possession of the Amnesty has to do with it. And how," I added, puzzled, "you seemed to know so much about Amnesty-bearers and their vile dispositions!"

She took her hands from her face, streaked with tears, and said, with a shy grin, "I was guessing at that part. I just kind of assumed they'd all be pretty intolerant. Who wouldn't be, with all that power?"

"Well, _I_ wouldn't for one," I said defensively. "I only bite when I'm bitten."

She found a handkerchief somewhere and began sopping up the wet spots from her complexion; a complexion, I noted happily, that did not come off with water.

"Have a chair," I said, and rang for the steward. "I hope you drink?"

"Not a lot," she admitted. "But I could use one right now."

"Good," I said, watching her as she poised gracefully on the chair before my cabin's private stereo set. "By the way, my name's Jery. Jery Delvin."

She flushed scarlet again, and said, "Mine is White."

"First name?" I asked. She paused. "What is your first name?"

She looked at the carpet. "Snow," she said softly.

"For real?" I said. "Like with the dwarfs?"

She nodded, as one who'd been over the same conversational ground many wearisome times in the past. "Mother was a Walt Disney fan, back in the Age of Movies."

I shook my head, and rang for the steward again. "I think we both could use a drink."

Later, the puzzled steward departed for the dining salon to return the steak knife which Snow had "accidentally" picked up. We sipped our drinks in mutual silence for a 

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