she mused, "The same person who swung a pick, a couple of years ago,
now deals with something as marvelous as this...." He forgot about
worrying.

* * * * *

But he remembered later, when the gig had left and Chung called him to
his office. Avis came too, by request. As she entered, she asked why.

"You were visiting your folks Earthside last year," Chung said.
"Nobody else in the Station has been back as recently as that."

"What can I tell you?"

"I'm not sure. Background, perhaps. The feel of the place. We don't
really know, out in the Belt, what's going on there. The beamcast news
is hardly a trickle. Besides, you have more common sense in your left
little toe than that big mick yonder has on his entire copperplated
head."

They seated themselves in the cobwebby low-gee chairs around Chung's
desk. Blades took out his pipe and filled the bowl with his tobacco
ration for today. Wouldn't it be great, he thought dreamily, if this
old briar turned out to be an Aladdin's lamp, and the smoke condensed
into a blonde she-Canadian--?

"Wake up, will you?" Chung barked.

"Huh?" Blades started. "Oh. Sure. What's the matter? You look like a
fish on Friday."

"Maybe with reason. Did you notice anything unusual with that party
you were escorting?"

"Yes, indeed."

"What?"

"About one hundred seventy-five centimeters tall, yellow hair, blue
eyes, and some of the smoothest fourth-order curves I ever--"

"Mike, stop that!" Avis sounded appalled. "This is serious."

"I agree. She'll be leaving in a few more watches."

The girl bit her lip. "You're too old for that mooncalf rot and you
know it."

"Agreed again. I feel more like a bull." Blades made pawing motions on
the desktop.

"There's a lady present," Chung said.

Blades saw that Avis had gone quite pale. "I'm sorry," he blurted. "I
never thought ... I mean, you've always seemed like--"

"One of the boys," she finished for him in a brittle tone. "Sure.
Forget it. What's the problem, Jimmy?"

Chung folded his hands and stared at them. "I can't quite define
that," he answered, word by careful word. "Perhaps I've simply gone
spacedizzy. But when we called on Admiral Hulse, and later when he
called on us, didn't you get the impression of, well, wariness? Didn't
he seem to be watching and probing, every minute we were together?"

"I wouldn't call him a cheerful sort," Blades nodded. "Stiff as
molasses on Pluto. But I suppose