"You will not!"
"Exactly how, pater dear, do you propose to stop me?"
The governor looked as if he were about to have a stroke. Then he swung
around, stamped from the fo'cs'le.
It struck Joel as a shade overdrawn. As if Priscilla inadvertently had
been about to let something slip, and they'd staged this impromptu
fight to cover up.
He heard the commandant say, "Sorry, Priscilla, but I'm due on the
bridge."
Priscilla gave Joel a last searching look. Her green eyes sparkled.
"I'll see you at the slave block in Eden," she said as she preceded the
commandant through the door.
As soon as the guards had withdrawn, Nick Thorp gave a low whistle.
Joel was still furious. "What was she driving at? Why the devil did she
pick me out?" He noticed that Professor Liedl was regarding him with a
frown. Tamis, too, was watching him, a speculative expression on her
elfin piquant features.
Thorp shrugged. "That's hard to tell. She's got a reputation from one
end of Asgard to the other. There's even been talk that she's a mutant."
"Mutant." Joel frowned. She certainly hadn't bred true to type. The
standard Terran female had light brown skin, black hair and gray eyes.
But hers were green--like cat eyes. Like his own eyes!
A startled expression passed over his likeable rugged features. "By
George!" he said aloud. "I wonder!"
Later, when the lights had been extinguished again, he lay awake in the
dark--tense, listening. The fo'cs'le was quiet. At length, satisfied
that everyone was asleep, he slid from his bunk, crossed the deck to
the mess-room.
The faint yellow night light was burning. He sat down at a table, lit a
cigarette, waited. He was chain-smoking his third cigarette before he
heard a step. He glanced up quickly. Tamis was standing in front of him.