"Thanks."
They left, and Ross went grumpily to bed.
A secretive rustle in the room awoke him. "Helena?" he asked drowsily.
Pilot Breuer's voice giggled drunkenly, "Nope. Helena's passed out at Virgin Willie's, kind of the way I figured she would be on triple antigravs. Had my eye on you since Azor City, baby. You gonna be nice to me?"
"Get out of here!" Ross hissed furiously. "Out of here or I'll yell like hell."
"So yell," she giggled. "I got the house dick fixed. They know me here, baby——"
He fumbled for the bedside light and snapped it on. "I'll pitch you right through the door," he announced. "And if you give me any more lip I won't bother to open it before I do."
She hiccupped and said, "A spirited lad. That's the way I like 'em." With one hand she drew a nasty-looking little pistol. With the other she pulled a long zipper and stepped out of her pilot's coveralls.
Ross gulped. There were three ways to play this, the smart way, the stupid way, and the way that all of a sudden began to look attractive. He tried the stupid way.
He got the pistol barrel alongside his ear for his pains. "Don't jump me," Pilot Breuer giggled.
"The boys that've tried to take this gun away from me are stretched end to end from here to Azor City. By me, baby."
Ross blinked through a red-spotted haze. He took a deep breath and got smart. "You're pretty tough," he said admiringly.
"Oh, sure." She kicked the coveralls across the room and moved hi on him. "Baby," she said caressingly, "if I seem to sort of forget myself in the next couple of minutes, don't get any ideas. I never let go of my gun. Move over."
"Sure," Ross said hollowly. This, he told himself disgustedly, was the damnedest, silliest, ridiculousest. . .
There was a furious hiccup from the door. "So!" Helena said venomously, pushing the door wide and almost falling to the floor. "So!"
Ross flailed out of the bed, kicking the pistol out of Pilot Breuer's hand in the process. He cried enthusiastically, "Helena, dear!"
"Don't you 'Helena-dear' me!" she said, moving in and kicking the door shut behind her. "I leave you alone for one little minute, and what happens? And you!"
"Sorry," Pilot Breuer muttered, climbing into her coveralls. "Wrong room. Must've had one antigrav too many." She licked her lips apprehensively, zipping her coveralls and sidling toward the door. With one hand on the knob, she said diffidently, "If I could have my gun back——?
No, you're right! I'll get it tomorrow." She got through the door just ahead of a lamp.
"Hussy!" spat Helena. "And you, Ross——"
It was the last straw. As Ross lurched toward her he regretted only one thing: that he didn't have a hairbrush. Pilot Breuer had been right. Nobody paid any attention to the noise.
"Yes, Ross." Helena had hardly touched her breakfast; she sat with her eyes downcast.
" 'Yes, Ross'," he mimicked bitterly. "It better be 'Yes, Ross.' This place may look all right to you, but it's trouble. You don't want to find yourself stuck here all your life, do you? Then do what I tell you."
"Yes, Ross."
He pushed the remains of his food away. "Oh, the hell with it," he said dispiritedly. "I wish I'd never started out on this fool's errand. And I double damn well wish I'd left you in the dye vats."
"Yes, Ro——— I mean, I'm glad you didn't, Ross," she said in a small voice.
He stood up and patted her shoulder absently. "Come on," he said, "we've got to get over to the Cavallo place. I wish you had let me talk to them on the phone."
She said reasonably, "But you said——"
"I know what I said. When we get there, remember that I do the talking."
They walked through green-lit streets, filled with proud-looking women and sad-eyed men. The Cavallo Machine-Tool Corporation was only a few intersections away, by the map the desk clerk had drawn for Helena; they found it without trouble. It was a smallish sort of building for a factory, Ross thought, but perhaps that was how factories went on Azor. Besides, it was well constructed and beautifully landscaped with the purplish lawns these people seemed to prefer.
Helena led him through the door, as was right and proper. She said to the busy little bald-headed man who seemed to be the receptionist, "We're expected. Miss Cavallo, please."
"Certainly, Ma'am," he said with a gap-toothed smile, and worked a combination of rods arid buttons on the desk beside him. In a moment, he said, "Go right in. Three up and four over; can't miss it."
They passed through a noisy territory of machines where metal was sliced, spun, hacked, and planed; no one seemed to be paying any attention to them. Ross wondered who had built the machines, and had a sudden flash of realization as to where those builders were now: On "Minerva," staring at the unattainable free sky.
Miss Cavallo was a motherly type with a large black cigar. "Sit right down," she said heartily.
"You, too, young man. Tell me what we in Cavallo Company can do for you."
Helena opened her mouth, but Ross stopped her with a gesture. "That's enough," he said quietly.
"I'll take over. Miss Cavallo," he declaimed from memory, "what follows is under the seal."
"Is it indeed! What do you know," she said.
Ross said, "Wesley."
Miss Cavallo slapped her thigh admiringly. "Son of a gun," she said admiringly. "How this takes me back—those long-ago childhood days, learning these things at my mother's knee. Let's see. Uh—the limiting velocity is C."
"But C2 is not a velocity," Ross finished triumphantly. And, from the heart, "Miss Cavallo, you don't begin to know how happy this makes me."
Miss Cavallo reached over and pumped his hand, then Helena's. To the girl she said, "You've got a right to be a proud woman, believe me. The way he got through it, without a single stumble! Never saw anything like it in my life. Well, just tell me what I can do for you, now that that's over."
Ross took a deep, deep breath. He said earnestly, "A great deal. I don't know where to begin. You see, it all goes back to Halsey's Planet, where I come from. This, uh, this ship came in, a longliner, and it got some of us a little worried because, well, it seemed that some of the planets were no longer in communication. We—uh, Miss Cavallo?" She was smiling pleasantly enough, but Ross had the crazy feeling that he just wasn't getting through to her.
"Go right ahead," she boomed. "God knows, I've got nothing against men in business; that's old-fashioned prejudice. Take your time. I won't bite you. Get on with your proposition, young man."
"It isn't exactly a proposition," Ross said weakly. All of a sudden the words seemed hard to find.
What did you say to a potential partner hi the salvation of the human race when she just nodded and blew cigar smoke at you?
He made an effort. "Halsey's Planet was the seventh alternate destination for this ship, and so we figured—— That is, Miss Cavallo, it kind of looked like there was some sort of trouble. So Mr. Haarland—he's the one who has the F-T-L secret on Halsey, like you do here on Azor—he passed it on to me, of course—well, he asked me to, well, sort of take a look around." He stopped. The words by then were just barely audible anyhow; and Miss Cavallo had been looking furtively at her watch.
Miss Cavallo shrugged sympathetically to Helena. "They're all like that under the skin, aren't they?" she observed ambiguously. "Well, if men could take our jobs away from us, what would we do?
Stay home and mind the kids?" She roared and poked a box of cigars at Helena.
"Now," she said briskly, "let's get down to cases. I really enjoyed hearing those lines from you, young man, and I want you to know that I'm prepared to help you in any possible way because of them. Open a line of credit, speed up deliveries, send along some of our technical people to help you get set up—anything. Now, what can I do for you? Turret lathes? Grinders? Screw machines?"