run." He glanced at the blonde and couldn't see how anything so softly rounded could be practically indestructible. "Baby," he said, "are you sure that this isn't going to be dangerous for you?"

"Positive," she said. "But it's nice of you to worry." She blew him a kiss—which was about as satisfactory as such things always are. "What do we do now?"

"I shall admire you for a moment—from a distance," he added hastily. "It'll give time for the word to spread. Then I think I'll go see this second-hand asteroid dealer. Leaving you at home, I might add. There's going to be a limit to how much I can take of your public manners until this is over ... want me to call room service and have something to eat sent up?"

She shook her head. "I don't need anything. My metabolism is quite different from yours."

"Meaning you don't eat?"

"Not as often as you Terrans, at least," she said. "I may be hungry in a few days—it all depends...." Her voice trailed off without revealing on what it depended. But as he stared at the sensuous curves of her body, there was probably nothing which interested Manning less than her eating habits.

"That reminds me," he said. "Where have you been all my life? I've been around, but I don't think I ever saw an Aliothan before."

She had seated herself at the built-in vanity table and was combing her hair. It gleamed in the light like gold threads. "Probably not," she said. "Very few of us have ever been off our planet. This is my own first trip and it was only possible because Mr. Cruikshank arranged it."

"Why?"

She hesitated, then faced him with a funny little smile. "It's a kind of inequality of sexes," she said. "It's only the women of Alioth who are not allowed to leave the planet."

"All the men travel about in the galaxy?"

"Well—all the single men." She stood up and stretched seductively, her breasts straining against the wisp of silk. "But when an Aliothan man marries he never leaves his wife."

"That I can understand," Manning said fervently. "I can appreciate Aliothan men not wanting the competition they'd have if the rest of the universe knew about you. Have they always penned you in like that?"

She shrugged. "As long as I can remember 

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