He passed it over. O'Dea's grin disappeared as he read. He growled at the tape, flung it from him.
"So she married a rocket hand while my back was turned! Well—"
He frowned for a moment. Then his shoulders rose and fell in a carefree shrug.
"I go bigger for blondes, anyway. First thing I'm going to do after we report is head for Lidice, Venus, and go on the biggest tear in the history of the space guard. That'll be—"
There was a faintly disturbed look in Paul Hawthorne's eyes. But he soothed his conscience with the thought that O'Dea would be just as well off without Mercedes. So he saw no reason to tell Captain Lance O'Dea that he had typed out the story on the ethertype himself. Because all is fair in love as well as in war.
And Captain Paul Hawthorne was in love with Mercedes, too.