Her face went pale. "Oh, anything, sir," she said weakly.
He grinned at her. "Maybe I'll take you up on that if I'm not too busy."
He had never seen anyone so taken aback. She said, all flustered, "I'm Toni. Toni Fitzgerald. You can just call this building and ask for me. Any time."
"Maybe I'll do that," he smiled. "But now, let's see Old Man Demming."
That took her back too. Aside from being asked for a date—if asked could be the term—by the system's greatest celebrity, she was hearing for the first time the interplanetary tycoon being called Old Man Demming.
She said, "Oh, right this way, Captain Mathers."
Don said, "Mr. Mathers now, I'm afraid. I have new duties."
She looked up into his face. "You'll always be Captain Mathers to me, sir." She added, softly and irrelevantly, "My two brothers were lost on the Minerva in that action last year off Pluto." She took a deep breath, which only stressed her figure. "I've applied six times for Space Service, but they won't take me."
They were in an elevator now. Don said, "That's too bad, Toni. However, the Space Service isn't as romantic as you might think."