"Keep a grip on something," laughed Willard. "Here—I brought a small kit along. Let me fix your face."
She obediently clung to the anchoring shock springs at one end of the net and turned her face up so that he could work on the mask he had earlier painted on. His fingers were gentle, smoothing in the cream he had brought and rubbing off the make-up with lightly perfumed tissues. Maria closed her eyes luxuriously and thought how pleasant it was to be off Greenhaven.
"Was it very complicated, getting me out of there?" she asked.
"There were a lot of angles to think of," he answered, "but we pulled it off as slickly as I've ever seen done. Just strolled right out through them all. Things in this business don't often go that well to plan. There—now you look human again, just like when I started to put that face on you."
"Not exactly," smiled Maria, plucking ruefully at the native Mother Hubbard, which billowed hideously about her in the zero gravity.
"That's easily changed," Willard said, meeting her smile significantly. "See if you can find your way out any better than you did getting into it, while I sort out the clothes I got for us."
Between the reaction from the strain of the past few hours and a glow of gratitude toward her rescuer. Maria began to sense the stir of an emotion within her that took a few moments to recognize. It surprised her a little.
"Willard," she said lazily, "it's funny, but I feel just as if I'm falling in love with you."
"That's interesting," grinned the agent. "About time, too."
"I can't tell if my knees are weak," she went on, laying a hand on his shoulder to draw herself closer, "because I'm hanging in mid-air; but you always seem to be making me strip—and I find myself not minding."