"I'm half-inclined to agree with you, Mr. Andrews. But you must know I'm thrilled to be a-space. I've never been off Earth before."
"Oh. Then I capitulate. Pilot Norton, will you give Miss Hemingway a space tourist's run of the ship, please?"
"Be happy to." Norton nodded.
He looked around the salon, from face to face. There were four others there, all of them watching with a blank sort of interest. Norton took a deep breath of inner cheer for his luck. All the rest looked as though nothing could be as boring as a tourist's run of a spacecraft. He made the gesture of asking, but all shook their heads.
Norton opened the small bar and set everyone up to cocktails. Then he said to Alice, "Now, let's start at the bottom and work our way up."
"Any way you say," she told him.
Andrews got to his feet. "I think I'll tag along."
Norton swore below his breath.
Alice walked between them as Norton explained the workings of the spacecraft. She found Norton a good talker, and his lazy manner of speech somehow managed to convey a lot of information that a more intense man would have flubbed, because of a greater preoccupation with facts.