"You live a long way down," she said.
"I've got to be near my charges," he answered. "I told you I work on the ship; I'm a zoologist classifying any of the new specimens of extraterrestrial life they're always picking up. And I always get stuck with the worst quarters on the ship. Why, I can't even call all my suite my own. The whole front room is filled with some sort of ship's gear that my steward stumbles over every meal time."
She went on and on, down and down. "How many flights?" she wondered. "Two or twelve or twenty?" Now, why couldn't she remember? Only four little sips and her mind felt so cloudy. Down another corridor, and what was that funny smell? These passages were poorly ventilated in the lower levels; probably that was what made her feel so dizzy.
"Only one more flight," he whispered. "Only one more."
Down and along and then the door. She paused, conscious of rising excitement, conscious of her beating heart.
Dimly she noticed the sign on the door. "You—you mean whatever it is you're taking care of is in there with you?"
"Don't be frightened," his persuasive thought came. "It can't hurt you. It's locked in a cage."
Then she slid the bolt and turned the handle. Her head hurt for an instant; and she was inside, a blue and silver shadow in the dim anteroom, with the tray in her hand and the books under her arm and her pulse hammering.
She looked around the dim anteroom, at the spidery tangle of orange and black ropes against the left-hand wall; then at the doorway in the right-hand wall with the warm light streaming through. He was standing in the second room, one hand on the chair for support, the other extended toward her. For the first time he spoke aloud.
"Hello, butterfly," he said.