"I--uh--_what_? You're T. J.? You--a girl?"
"Will you please hurry with whatever you want to tell me? I haven't got
all day."
"My name's Stedman." Steve felt his composure returning. The fact that
T. J. Moore was a woman didn't make any difference. But unconsciously,
Steve regarded her as a member of the weaker sex, and a large chunk
of her fearsome reputation vanished because of it. "I wonder, if Mr.
Carmical contacted you--"
"He sure did, Stedman."
"Good, then we can--"
"Maybe you think it's good. I think it stinks. Listen, Stedman, maybe
you think you can pull the wool over my eyes like you did over Brody
Carmical--but you can't. He didn't recognize your name, I did. No kid
brother of Charlie Stedman's going to make trouble for me because he
thinks I was responsible for his brother's death."
"I didn't say--"
"You didn't have to say. I can see it in your face. But get this
straight, Stedman. Your brother died on Ganymede three years ago--of
natural causes, that is, if you can call some of the local fauna
'natural causes'. He worked for _Barling Brothers Interplanetary_, so
I guess the rivalry between them and us didn't help. But no one killed
him."
"I didn't say--"
"Is that all you can say, 'you didn't say?' Try to tell me why you came
aboard the _Gordak_; go ahead, try."
"I'm an expert in Extra-terrestrial zoology, and you needed one. Mr.
Carmical hired me."
"I know that. But I guess I also know a thing or two which Brody
Carmical doesn't. All right, Stedman. You come as far as Mercury. But
one slip, just one slip--"
"Okay, T. J.," Steve said, almost jauntily. "I'll watch my step."
"I'm the _Gordak_'s captain. You'll call me that. Captain--is it clear?"
"No," said Steve, and laughed. The ten-world junket would be a hard,
driving, gruelling ordeal come what might, and he wouldn't kowtow to T.
J. Moore, male or female, here at the beginning. "No," he said again,
forcing the laughter out. "This isn't a military ship, so you won't
impose any arbitrary discipline on me."
The woman laughed too, but it was more effective. "I won't, won't
I? Once we leave Earth, Stedman, everything we do is dangerous.
Everything. I've got to have full authority, every order obeyed at the
drop of a hat. Understand?"
"No."
The woman removed the black cap from her head, and Steve noticed, not
without surprise, that her pale blond hair wasn't close-cropped after
all. It had been piled up inside the cap, and now it spilled down
loosely about her shoulders. Smiling, she dropped the cap to the floor.
"Pick it up," she said.
"Are you kidding? I'm an expert on Extra-terrestrial zoology. That's
what Mr. Carmical hired me for. If you want that hat picked up, better
do it yourself." Vaguely, Steve wondered if Charlie had met the woman
those final days on far Ganymede, had fought with her tooth and nail
for some priceless specimen--and lost, with no witness but the bleak,
desolate topography of the Jovian moon.