On the way, Joan asked: “Our little Vesta surprised you, Storm?”
“Didn’t she you? She had me gasping like a fish.”
“Not so much. I know them pretty well and I used to breed cats. Scent: hearing—they can hear forty thousand cycles: the fact that they mature both mentally and physically long before they do sexually: some of their utterly barbarous customs: it’s quite a shock to learn how—‘queer,’ shall I say?—some of the Vegian mores are to us of other worlds.”
“ ‘Queer’ is certainly the word—as queer as a nine-credit bill. But confound it, Joan, I like ’em!”
“So do I, Storm,” she replied quietly. “They aren’t human, you know, and by Galactic standards they qualify. And now we’ll go and whack those vortices right on their center of impact.”
“We’ll do that, chum,” he said. Then, in perfect silence he went on in thought: “Chum? Sweetheart, I meant. . . . My God, what a sweetheart you’d. . . .”
“Storm!” Joan half-shrieked, eyes wide in astonishment. “You’re sending!”
“I’m not either!” he declared, blushing furiously. “I can’t—you’re snooping!”
“I’m not snooping—I haven’t snooped a lick since I started talking. You got it back there, Storm!” She seized both his hands and squeezed. “You did it, and neither of us realized it ’til just this minute!”