“I didn’t see you. Dressed like that I wouldn’t have forgotten you.”
“I wasn’t dressed like this.” The girl smiled, very sure of herself. “I read your mind when you came in. The costume’s had the desired effect, I see. But you needn’t broadcast your animal desires so blatantly.”
“Nobody asked you to read my mind. Besides, you needn’t broadcast your physical assets so blatantly.”
“Touché,” said the Earthgirl.
“Listen,” Ramsey began. “We’re in a jam. We’re in a hurry.”
“So you told me. I couldn’t have wished for more. It looks like I didn’t need this costume and its obvious inducements at all, if you’re really in a jam.”
[p 20]
“What the devil is that supposed to mean?”
“My name is Margot Dennison, Captain Ramsey. I have managed to buy an old starship, small and held together by spit and string and whatever the Irwadians use for prayer—”
“They’re atheists,” Ramsey said a little pointlessly. It was the girl. Darn her hide, she was beautiful! What did she expect? Looking at her, how could a man concentrate…. “Hey!” Ramsey blurted suddenly. “Did you say Margot Dennison? The tri-di star?”
Margot Dennison smiled. “That’s right,” she said. “Stranded five hundred light years from nowhere, Captain Ramsey. With a ship. With money. In need of a hyper-space pilot. That’s why I’m here, or didn’t you guess?”