"In the reading room."
Mallory saluted, turned and went to the ship's library. As he walked he found himself hoping, why, he did not try to explain to himself, that he would find the room empty. But it was not. A single lamp was lighted inside. As Mallory pressed open the door, shadows danced on the farther wall; the wavering, unidimensional symbol of an upright figure spun and made swift, jabbing motions, dropped. There was a sound of paper rustling, the rough scrape of calfskin on buckram. Then he was in the room, and Lady Alice was seated beside the refectory table, ostensibly reading a book. She glanced up with a little movement of surprise.
"Why, Lieutenant, what a pleasant surprise!"
Mallory stifled the impulse to say, "Pleasant?" He stared at the girl curiously, reminding himself for the hundredth time since she had come aboard this ship, six days ago, that as man and woman they had no common meeting ground, they lived on planes inordinately diverse. He was Dan Mallory, a Lieutenant of the Solar Space Patrol, a respectable, if underpaid, watchdog of law and order in man's widening circle of influence. Moreover, he was a young lieutenant. It would be years before he earned a major brevet, became an acceptable social figure. Even if a miracle were to happen, if he were to be selected into the envied corps of Lensmen, he would only be a super-cop. While she....
She was Lady Alice Charwell, possessor of a name and title respected for more than eight hundred years. Of course the title was now one of courtesy only; there was no Duchy of Io since the cession of that satellite to the World Council. But once her father had been manor lord of the entire globe; in the Almanach de Gotha her family name and crest still figured prominently.
All of which had little to do with the fact that her eyes were blue as the morning mists of Venus, that her limbs were white and straight and supple, softly feminine despite the mannish slack and shirt ensemble she affected, that her hair was a seine of sunlight gold that snared Dan Mallory's heart and quickened his breath.
He forced his voice to calmness. He said, "Lady Alice, don't you think it would be better if you were to go to bed? This—this staying up at night—"
Her laughter was warm and delicious.
"But, Lieutenant! Surely there's no harm in my reading myself to sleep?"
"Not a bit," agreed Mallory. He bit his lip. "I might suggest, though, that unless you're reading a book in the Lower Venusian language, it would be easier to read if the book were right side up. And—" He walked past her, swiftly, stared at the book which, hastily thrust back into the bookcase, still jutted out beyond its fellows. "And you might find more interesting reading matter than a tactical survey of Ionian military resources."