"I'm glad you brought that up; I don't know whether I would have dared to or not. You've got to stop acting like a Third instead of an Operator; and you've got to stop acting as though you had never been within ten feet of me. Now's as good a time as any." He took off his shirt and struck a strong-man's pose. "Come ahead."
"By golly, I'm going to!" Then, a moment later, "Why, they're even harder! How do you, a scientist, psionicist, and scholar, keep in such hard shape as that?"
"An hour a day in the gym, three hundred sixty-five days a year. Many are better—but a hell of a lot are worse."
"I'll say." She finished her ginger ale, sat down in her chair, leaned back and put her legs up on the bed. "That was a relief of tension if there ever was one. I haven't felt so good since they picked me as home-town candidate—and that was a mighty small town and eight months ago. Bring on your dragons, Clee, and I'll slay 'em far and wide. But I can't actually be like she is...."
"Thank God for that. Deliver me from two such pretzel-benders aboard one ship."
"... but I could have been a pretty good actress, I think."
"Correction, please. 'Outstanding' is the word."
"Thank you, kind sir. And women—men, too, of course—do bring up certain memories, to ... to...."
"To roll 'em around on their tongues and give their taste-buds a treat."
"Exactly. So where I don't have any appropriate actual memories to bring up, I'll make like an actress. Check?"