"Okay. We're second looeys. Now, what shall I do? Go to Spartan and say, 'Listen, you old goat, stop looking lecherously at my wife-in-name-only'?"
"This is no joking matter, Bill Drake. I may be your wife-in-name-only but there was a good sound reason for our marriage. You have to keep me from—uh—well, getting involved. You're a sort of chaperon."
I groaned.
"Let me tell you something," she went on. "During my first trick in the control room—not long after we started our routine on this ship—Spartan came in and spent almost the five hours with me. He talked to me as I'd never been talked to before, Bill Drake. He told me to move my sleeping bag into his compartment and live there. He made it sound as if it were my duty and that I'd be shirking if I didn't."
I gaped at her. "The hell he did!" I just couldn't believe it. "You must have misunderstood him—"
"I most certainly did not!" she said. "Don't you believe me?"
"Well, the guy isn't any tin god," I said. "But he didn't force you to do what he'd suggested."
"Do you know why?" she asked. When I didn't answer she went on. "Because I told him that if he did, he'd have to explain to the whole crew. He'd wind up with a red-hot mutiny on his hands. And when we returned from Mars, I'd nail his hide to the Pentagon, or some other conspicuous place."
I whistled. "And he took it?"
"Not meekly. He said that if he wished, he could "take care" of the whole crew. And if I repeated what he said to me, to anyone, he'd brand it as a pack of lies. He particularly cautioned me against telling you. He said he didn't want to be forced into "taking care" of you."