Once in his own quarters, Henry Ohm began dragging on his oxygen suit. He could still see the girl through the glass partitions of the igloo. She had dropped into a chair, lit a cigarette.
"About as private," he thought wryly, "as a gold fish bowl."
The igloos, he knew, were manufactured for housing on the airless asteroids of the belt. They were built of a clear thermal plastic and incorporated heating, atmosphere and water units. Henry Ohm felt rather strongly though that the partitions could have been clouded.
Sofi's holdings had not been designed to accommodate visitors. In fact, Henry Ohm had spent the past week in a state of mild embarrassment.
He settled his helmet over his head, bolted it in place. He glanced toward the living room, but Sofi wasn't there. Then he saw her in her own quarters. She was skinning out of her coveralls, preparing to shower.
"Damn all glass houses," he muttered and bolted for the air lock.
Hen emerged on the surface, swept the tight horizon with his eyes. It was empty of life. R-7 had lost patience, evidently, and wandered off.
To the left was the laboratory and machine shop, a gleaming plastic igloo resembling the living quarters. Robots Incorporated had provided it for him to observe, diagnose, repair his mechanical charges. Beyond the laboratory a somewhat larger igloo housed the mine shaft, reduction plant and tipple. A dilapidated tramp freighter sprawled beside the tipple like a foundered whale.
Hen frowned. Operations had come to a halt. He could catch no glimpse of movement through the plastic walls.
He lengthened his stride, passed through the door, still open just as Sofi had left it when she fled. The interior reminded him of the appearance of a shop from which the proprietor has just stepped to buy a paper.