Time passed slowly, hovering there high above tiny Japetus, waiting for Saturn's shadow and a chance to slip in.
Ross yawned and stretched. Then, taking out his writer, he doodled briefly on an astrogation pad.
Only somehow, the doodles all seemed to end up resembling Veta Hall.
Ross sighed and put away the writer. Sinking deeper into his seat, he stretched his legs at full length before him. His shoulders, his head, sagged forward just a fraction. But he still kept the blaster across his lap; and though his lids tended to droop, his grey eyes still followed the woman's every move.
Incongruously, she wore a quilted space-suit liner. But even such failed to hide the youthfulness of her body and her movements. Her dark, curly hair—worn short—only accented the regularity of her features, the unblemished smoothness of her skin, the absence of all lines and wrinkles.
Now, suddenly, she flushed under Ross' scrutiny. Turning away abruptly, she fumbled in her shoulder-bag and, after a moment, brought forth a Pallastan vocorn pipe.
Ross' eyes widened. But he said nothing.
Adjusting the pipe's mouthpiece, still ignoring Ross, the girl began to play. Weird minor melodies, developed in the unique contrapuntal manner of the pipe's fourteen-note polyphonic scale, welled and echoed through the cramped space of the cruiser's cabin.
Wincing, Ross held his peace till the girl paused.
"You're from Pallas, Veta?" he asked then, quickly.