The girl laughed as she watched his efforts, then guided his hands with her own, and Joel felt a strange warmth mounting in his neck. And when the kaelli was at last freed, he said, "Now then, where can I take you? I owe you something more than just the replacement of your dhennah. I shall drive slowly so that the kaelli can follow, and you can see for yourself what it is like to ride in one of our machines!"
"But—they go like the wind!"
"Indeed they do!" Joel laughed, unaccountably pleased with her excitement. "Yes, ma'm, just like the wind!"
Quite unexpectedly, she reached for his hand, and Joel clasped hers with a quickness he had not intended. But then he was leading her to the jeep, helping her into it.
He started the powerful turbine engine, chuckled aloud at her quick gasp, then joined in her laughter.
"Just like the wind!" he cried and they were off.
The day was clear and bright and to Joel the air itself seemed to come alive with a heady excitement. This was something, it told him. This was not to hate. This was not to drink in bitterness. This was not to be alone.
Captain Nicholas Joel paced the fore-waist bridge. There was a full, untouched flagon on the mahogany desk, and the bottle of Martian Colony Bond stood, tightly corked, beside it.
He sat down, hating the feel of the chair of command beneath his big body.