Grandma smiled prettily. "Now, then, about my accommodations. You know that lovely mother-of-pearl suite that Miss Toujours has? Well, I think I ought to have that suite. I'm far too old to be climbing all those stairs and that other cabin was so small." She looked up a bit, as if in a blissful reverie. "Miss Toujours has to rush back to make some new pictures, and I'm sure that she wouldn't like to be delayed in space for weeks and weeks. So you might have her leave me a set of those lacy nighties, too. They looked so nice. And I'll have to have her seat at the Captain's table too, of course. And I'd need my own private steward. Johnny Weaver will do nicely, I think. And—"
Grandma, the morose Captain and the Kismet's legal officer finally straightened matters out. In return for the granting of her every whim for the rest of the voyage, Grandma agreed to return to the ship and free Stellar Transportation from any liability arising from her kidnapping. She was almost glowing over it all, but it was a beaten and broken Fogarty who finally broke the video circuit some minutes later.
Turning to the crew of the Dirty Shame, Grandma smiled with great innocence. "Now, wasn't it nice of them to go to all that trouble over a little old lady like me," she said.
Lamps grinned. "You sure fixed them, Grandma. But what a pack of trouble you got us into with the law. What are we going to do with Trumble and the Faultless out there? The Space Patrol will chase us the rest of our lives for pulling a fast one like this."
Grandma snapped her fingers. "I knew there was something I had forgotten." She turned back to the video set. "Hello, Commodore Trumble," she called.
"Well, I hope you're satisfied," came the booming voice of the Commodore.
"No, not quite. There's a small matter of amnesty for the crew of the Dirty Shame. If you'll just make out the papers giving them a full pardon for this whole affair, everything will be just fine."
Grandma winced at the language he used in reply. On the tail of the last string of curses, he added, "I won't do it. What do you think I am, an idiot?"
"We won't discuss the subject just at the moment, Commodore. But, really, you wouldn't want the story to get out that the big, brave, fearless Commodore Trumble got himself out-foxed by a poor little innocent old lady like me, would you? Silence comes dear, as my husband used to say to me."
"I—I—"