At sight of her, of course, Callahan's eyes near popped from his old head. "Berta!"
"Oh, I'm Trillium," she assured Callahan sweetly. "But Grandmamma's name is Berta and people say I'm just like she was a hundred and twenty-five years ago."
"Hah? What?" Callahan blinked like his brain had been taken apart and was being slapped together again. "O'Rielly! Awp, you angel-faced pirate, couldn't you hide her somewheres better than that? Shut up, you don't have to explain to me, but God help the whole universe if we don't flimflam the Old Woman!" With which ominous remark, rendered in a zesty devil-may-care manner, however, Callahan threw himself into O'Rielly's shower.
O'Rielly stood looking thoughtfully at lovely, womanly, exquisite Trillium. Just like that, O'Rielly felt as sparkling of mind as a spiral nebula. "My locker!" he crowed with inspiration and yanked open the doors under his bunk. He glimpsed a black ditty bag, also the cap and coverall uniform of a baggage boy.
"I threw them in there before you came on duty before blast-off," Trillium explained. "I knew the burner room would be warm."
Trillium—with her shape—passing as a boy hustling bags through this ship. O'Rielly chortled as he tucked her under his bunk. "Now don't you worry about another thing!"
"Oh, I'm not," she assured him happily. "Everything is going just the way Grandmamma knew it would!"
O'Rielly's shower opened and Callahan, glowing like a young bucko, bounced onto the bunk. "Well, did you hide her good this time? No, don't tell me! I want to be surprised if the Old Woman ever finds her."
"If what old woman finds whom?" a voice like thin ice crackling wanted to know.