She was a dream. Even with her lips rouge-scarlet, her cheeks pink with makeup, her eyes heavy with artifice.
"What gives, beautiful?" He was surprised at the weakness of his voice.
Her voice was hard, but nice, and it was bitter, as though she wanted hard people to know she knew the score, could be just a little harder. "You're a spaceman now! Didn't you know?"
Gene grinned weakly. "I don't know a star from a street light. Nobody gets on the space crews these days—it's a closed union."
Her laugh was full of a knowledge denied him. "That's what I used to think!"
She began to unstrap him from the hammock. Then she pushed back his hair, prodded at the purple knob on his head with careful fingertips.
"How come you're on this ship?" asked Gene, wincing but letting her fingers explore.
"Shanghaied, same as you. I'm from the Blue Moon. I stepped out between acts for a breath of fresh air, and wham, a sack over the head and here I am. They thought you might have a cracked skull. One of the monsters told me to check you. No doctor on the ship."
Gene groaned. "Then I didn't dream it—there is a guy on this ship with fingernails instead of a beard on his chin!"
She nodded. "You haven't seen anything yet!"