"Go on, play dumb. You've been pretty good at it for the past several months. Thought you were fooling me, didn't you?"
"Bert, for crissakes, what's eating you?"
"See this ship, Miles?" Bert's voice had a tautness to it. "It was our first one. We built this business with it—or should I say, I built the ship, you built the business?"
"Whatever we did we did together, Bert. You know that. I've always said you were the real brain here—without your technical skill there wouldn't be a Tanner-Berendt Space Lines. But what are you leading up to?"
Tanner's hand ran fondly along the lines of the model ship. "A ship's like a woman—as I said," Bert said. "Both have beauty and dignity, but they're no good without a man ... the right man."
"You're talking in riddles, Bert."
Tanner laughed again. "Like I said, Miles, take this ship. Our first one. I practically built it by hand with Jeff Morrow helping. Jeff loved her almost as much as I did. Even you loved her, I suppose."
Miles nodded. "The Space Queen was a honey. But that was five years ago. Why all this retrospection? And Jeff's got quite a few other ships to love these days—our whole fleet!"
"We'll forget about Jeff," Tanner went on. "This is between you and me. I mentioned the Space Queen because the day we launched her was the day Carol walked into the office looking for a job. I hired her. She worked for me in the research labs for three years and everything was fine. Then you butted your nose in and convinced her she belonged in operations. She switched to your office—all very polite, but don't think for one damned minute I didn't know what you had in mind!"
"Bert, I swear to God if you don't stop blatting like a drunken spacer, I'll—"