"Well, I don't like her very much, but I wouldn't think she would do anything like that, Clee. It isn't urbane."
"She isn't urbane, either, whenever she thinks it might be advantageous not to be."
"What a terrible thing to say!"
"Take it from me, if Belle Bellamy doesn't know everything that goes on it isn't from lack of trying. You wouldn't know about room service, either, then—better scan that tape before you go to sleep tonight—what'll you have in the line of a drink to while away enough time so she will know we've been playing games?"
"Ginger ale, please."
"I'll have ginger beer. You do it like so." He slid a panel aside, his fingers played briefly on a typewriter-like keyboard. Drinks and ice appeared. "Anything you want—details of the tape."
He lighted two cigarettes, handed her one, stirred his drink. "Now, fair lady—or should I say beauteous dark lady?—we will follow the precept of that immortal Chinese philosopher, Chin On."
"You are a Prime Operator, aren't you?" She laughed, but sobered quickly. "I'm worried. You said I flaunted virginity like a banner, and now Belle.... What am I doing wrong?"
"There's a lot wrong. Not so much what you're doing as what you aren't doing. You're too aloof—detached—egg-headish. You know the score, words and music, but you don't sing. All you do is listen. Belle thinks you're not only a physical virgin, but a psychic-blocked prude. I know better. You're so full of conflict between what you want to do—what you know is right—and what those three-cell-brained nincompoops made you think you ought to do that you have got no more degrees of freedom than a piston-rod. You haven't been yourself for a minute since you came aboard. Check?"
"You have been thinking, haven't you? You may be right; except that it's been longer than that ... ever since the first preliminaries, I think. But what can I do about it, Clee?"