h." He came to her.

She watched him warily, a soft flabby man not quite so tall as she
was, but who nevertheless out-weighed her by thirty or forty pounds.
In his eagerness, he walked too fast, lost his footing and floated
gently to the ceiling. Smiling as demurely as she could, Sophia
reached up, circled his ankle with her hand.

"I never could get used to this weightlessness," Georgi admitted. "Be
nice and pull me down."

"I will be nice. I will teach you a lesson."

He weighed exactly nothing. It was as simple as stretching. Sophia
merely extended her arm upwards and Georgi's head hit the ceiling
with a loud _thunk_. Georgi groaned. Sophia repeated the procedure,
lowering her arm a foot--and Georgi with it--then raising it and
bouncing his head off the ceiling.

"I don't understand," Georgi whined, trying to break free but only
succeeding in thrashing his chubby arms foolishly.

"You haven't mastered weightlessness," Sophia smiled up at him. "I
have. I said I would teach you a lesson. First make sure you have the
strength of a man if you would play a man's game."

Still smiling, Sophia commenced spinning the hand which held Georgi's
ankle. Arms and free leg flailing air helplessly, Georgi began to
spin.

"Put me down!" he whined, a boy now, not even pretending to be a man.
When Sophia shoved out gently and let his ankle go he did a neat flip
in air and hung suspended, upside down, his feet near the ceiling, his
head on a level with Sophia's shoulders. He cried.

She slapped his upside down face, carefully and without excitement,
reddening the cheeks. "I was--only joking," he slobbered. "Call back
our friends."

Sophia found one of the hard, air-tight metal flasks they used for
drinking in weightlessness. With one hand she opened the lid, with the
other she grasped Georgi's shoulder and spun him in air, still upside
down. She squirted the water in his face, and because he was upside
down and yelling it made him choke and cough. When the container was
empty she lowered Georgi gently to the floor.

Minutes later, she opened the door, summoned Boris and Ivan, who came
into the room self-consciously. What they found was a thoroughly
beaten Georgi sobbing on the floor. After that, Sophia had no trouble.
Week after week of boredom followed and she almost wished Georgi or
someone else would _look_ for trouble ... even if it were something
she could not handle, for although she was stronger than average and
mo