"Yes," he said. "I had to."
"Man! What stamina!"
Dusty yawned and came unglued on the divan opposite the one that Scyth Radnor occupied. Nort Wilgas nodded at him and then turned to Barbara. "You can relax too. I'll take over."
Dusty Britton was fast asleep when the spacecraft made its landing on Marandis.
XI
Dusty awoke to find the sunshine streaming in through a small porthole and lighting the cabin cheerfully. The smell of fresh air was in his lungs, a pungent, pleasant smell faintly of cinnamon or nutmeg but not quite either. He recalled that he had folded out on the divan in the salon, now he was in one of the cabins below the salon level. He wondered how he had arrived.
He stretched his muscles, the cool sheets felt pleasant against his back. Then he wondered who had undressed him and how anybody had been gentle enough to do the job without waking him. He looked around the cabin expectantly and as he looked, his door opened and a woman came in.
She was wearing white from cap to slippers and Dusty pegged her for a nurse at once. She was wholesome enough, but neither her face nor her figure would have stopped any traffic on Fifth Avenue. She carried a book with a finger slipped between pages to mark her place and in her other hand she held the Marandanian equivalent of a cigarette. A pleasant curl of smoke rose from the lighted end.
"Hello," she offered brightly. "And how do we feel this morning?"