"I'm an expert in Extra-terrestrial zoology, and you needed one. Mr. Carmical hired me."
"I know that. But I guess I also know a thing or two which Brody Carmical doesn't. All right, Stedman. You come as far as Mercury. But one slip, just one slip—"
"Okay, T. J.," Steve said, almost jauntily. "I'll watch my step."
"I'm the Gordak's captain. You'll call me that. Captain—is it clear?"
"No," said Steve, and laughed. The ten-world junket would be a hard, driving, gruelling ordeal come what might, and he wouldn't kowtow to T. J. Moore, male or female, here at the beginning. "No," he said again, forcing the laughter out. "This isn't a military ship, so you won't impose any arbitrary discipline on me."
The woman laughed too, but it was more effective. "I won't, won't I? Once we leave Earth, Stedman, everything we do is dangerous. Everything. I've got to have full authority, every order obeyed at the drop of a hat. Understand?"
"No."
The woman removed the black cap from her head, and Steve noticed, not without surprise, that her pale blond hair wasn't close-cropped after all. It had been piled up inside the cap, and now it spilled down loosely about her shoulders. Smiling, she dropped the cap to the floor. "Pick it up," she said.
"Are you kidding? I'm an expert on Extra-terrestrial zoology. That's what Mr. Carmical hired me for. If you want that hat picked up, better do it yourself." Vaguely, Steve wondered if Charlie had met the woman those final days on far Ganymede, had fought with her tooth and nail for some priceless specimen—and lost, with no witness but the bleak, desolate topography of the Jovian moon.
The woman turned away from him, called: "LeClarc! LeClarc, come here."