* * * * *
My sister's voice was steaming with scorn. "And what makes you think
that I'd consider you a desirable husband?"
He spread his hands genially. "Figure if you wanted a poodle, you're
pretty enough to pick one up on Earth. Figure if you charge off to
Venus, you don't want a poodle, you want a man. I'm one. I own three
islands in the Galertan Archipelago that'll be good oozing mudgrape
land when they're cleared. Not to mention the rich berzeliot beds
offshore. I got no bad habits outside of having my own way. I'm also
passable good-looking for a slaptoe planter. Besides, if you marry
me you'll be the first mated on this ship--and that's a splash most
nesting females like to make."
There was a longish stretch of quiet. Sis stepped back and measured him
slowly with her eyes; there was a lot to look at. He waited patiently
while she covered the distance from his peculiar green boots to that
head of hair. I was so excited I was gulping instead of breathing.
Imagine having Butt for a brother-in-law and living on a wet-plantation
in Flatfolk country!
But then I remembered Sis's level head and I didn't have much hope any
more.
"You know," she began, "there's more to marriage than just--"
"So there is," he cut in. "Well, we can try each other for taste." And
he pulled her in, both of his great hands practically covering her
slim, straight back.
Neither of them said anything for a bit after he let go. Butt spoke up
first.
"Now, me," he said, "I'd vote yes."
Sis ran the tip of her tongue kind of delicately from side to side
of her mouth. Then she stepped back slowly and looked at him as if
she were figuring out how many feet high he was. She kept on moving
backward, tapping her chin, while Butt and I got more and more
impatient. When she touched the lifeboat door, she pushed it open and
jumped out.
* * * * *
Butt ran over and looked down the crossway. After a while, he shut the
door and came back beside me. "Well," he said, swinging to a bunk,
"that's sort of it."
"You're better off, Butt," I burst out. "You shouldn't have a woman
like Sis for a wife. She looks small and helpless, but don't forget
she was trained to run an underwater city!"
"Wasn't worrying about that," he grinned. "_I_ grew up in the fifteen
long years of the Blue Chicago Rising. Nope." He turned over on his
back and clicked his teeth at the ceiling. "Think we'd have nested out
nicely."
I hitched myself up to him and we sat on the bunk, glooming away at
each other. Then we heard the tramp of feet in the crossway.
Butt swung down and headed for the control compartment in the
nose of the lifeboat. He had his blaster out and was cursing very
interestingly. I started after him, but he picked me up by the seat
of my jumper and tossed me toward the door. The Captain came in and
tripped over me.
I got all tangled up in his gold braid and million-mile space buttons.
When we finally got to our feet and sorted out right, he was breathing
very hard. The Captain was a round little man with a plump, golden face
and a very scared look on it. He _humphed_ at me, just the way Sis
does, and lifted me by the scruff of my neck. The Chief Mate picked me
up and passed me to the Second Assistant Engineer.
Sis was there, being held by the purser on one side and the Chief
Computer's Mate on the other. Behind them, I could see a flock of
wide-eyed female passengers.
"You cowards!" Sis was raging. "Letting your Captain face a dangerous
outlaw all by himself!"
"I dunno, Miss Sparling," the Computer's Mate said, scratching the
miniature slide-rule insignia on his visor with his free hand. "The Old
Man would've been willing to let it go with a log entry, figuring the
spaceport paddlefeet could pry out the stowaway when we landed. But you
had to quote the Mother Anita Law at him, and he's in there doing his
duty. He figures the rest of us are family men, too, and there's no
sense making orphans."
"You promised, Sis," I told her through my teeth. "You promised you
wouldn't get Butt into trouble!"
She tossed her spiral curls at me and ground a heel into the purser's
instep. He screwed up his face and howled, but he didn't let go of her
arm.
"_Shush_, Ferdinand, this is serious!"