"What is she doing, learning to be a strip-tease dancer?" he asked.
"Perfect muscular control. This is one of the exercises we all learn," John answered. "What's a strip-tease dancer?"
"Nothing you ever heard of," Zen answered. "But while she is developing her muscular control, what is she doing to the endocrinal system of every male in the place?"
"Not a thing," John said, astonished again.
Zen had grave doubts that the tall youth knew what he was talking about.
John selected a single book from the top of the double-decker bed, and anxiously inquired if there was anything more he could do to make the colonel comfortable for the night. Upon being told there was not, he departed with the book. Zen thought of the book benignly. If the tall youth was going to spend the night with Nedra, at least there would be a book between them.
He slid off his heavy pack and set the lieutenant's sub-machine gun where he could reach it readily. His counter told him there was no radioactivity present.
Books were in a niche in the stone wall behind the bed. The author of one caught his eye: Jal Jonner.
The name was enough to hold his attention. Jonner was known to have written books, but few had survived. Even the Library of Congress did not have them, but there was no Library of Congress in any sense of the word any more. When Washington had left the planet, the Library had gone with it.
Glancing at the introduction, Zen forgot all about his fatigue and where he was. One glance at the words and he knew he was in contact with the living waters of life itself.