"We don't know what's important to him," said Daley. "We don't know what in blazes he wants aboard. We don't know a doggone thing!"
Silver returned. "I heard the mutiny gates go," he said questioningly.
"Are you all armed?" asked Pink. They nodded. "Then let's sweep the place," he said, glancing from one grim face to another. "Pick up the other officers as we go, and make a chain of inspection that he can't bust through. We'll corner him sooner or later. Then we'll see if atomic pistols will settle his hash." He looked at Circe. "You'd better stay here," he said.
"I agree," said Randy Kinkare suddenly. "And you'd best lock her in—from the outside."
"Why?" blazed the girl.
"We picked you up on an asteroid too," said the assistant pilot.
Pink, restraining himself from bashing Kinkare in the nose, said reluctantly, "You're right. We can't trust any stranger till we find out what's going on. Sorry, Circe."
"I suppose you're right." She sat down, a little flushed, eyes snapping. "Have I the right to ask for protection? I'm just as unsafe as you are, whether you believe me or not. Please leave Lieutenant Silver to guard me."
He couldn't refuse. He nodded curtly to Joe Silver, who looked too damn smug for words. So they'd paired off already? So much for his quick dream of marrying a spacegirl....
It had never happened to him before, though, and it was a hard dream to give up, all the more so for its abrupt flowering in a heart that heretofore had held nothing but love for the silence of the spaceways. John Pinkham, rugged, handsome, all a woman could want, had been dedicated to his profession since he was five; and many a wench had found that out to her disappointment. Now ... oh, well. Maybe there wasn't room for space and a girl in his heart, after all. And maybe she wasn't what she seemed.