Thaxton looked up, bobbed his head.
"Mm-hmm!" he said. "Woo—woo!"
"And—and the result?"
"She wouldn't." Thaxton shook his head regretfully. "When I got insistent, she slapped my face—"
"You infernal idiot!" roared the Venusian commander. "I'm talking about the cargo! Did you or did you not find contraband aboard this ship? If you did—"
They could have filled two stratosphere balloons with the breath that was held at that moment. But then the little man broke the spell. Broke? Shattered. Into ten thousand tiny pieces. For he said,
"Contraband, Commander? Oh, mercy me, no! Whatever made you think there'd be contraband aboard this ship?" And he slid off the visiphone unit, to announce:
"Well, we'd better be going now, hadn't we? Thanks for a pleasant trip, Captain Hanson. I hope I'll see you again some time."
The Venusian commander's face was crimson, but he was a gentleman. To Hanson he said,