"How did he take it out on you, parade duty?" "Worse. He made me an aide." The girl leaned on an elbow and regarded him with her chin in her hand. "You bring his slippers?" "As G-2, I did up until quarter of an hour ago. I've been promoted. Meet the Base Mojave Syk Cooerdinator." Putting her nose in her drink, she giggled softly. "What is it he wants cooerdinated, the syk or me?" "You're on bearing," he laughed. "My name's Grant." His hand went across the table, opened, and waited. "Bridget," she said, and her hand fell into his in a handshake which lingered slightly. * * * * * At Grant's insistence they jeep-toured the base. To his surprise Bridget took interest in the installations, but asked most of her questions around the atomjet hangars. "I've never seen one close," she hinted. Grant flashed his Security card at the guards and they went in. She strolled about the tapering, snub-winged craft, apparently inspecting it closely. Grant's thought was that she felt she had to dramatize understanding something about Air Force rocketry. After a short silence Bridget asked, "What is the compensating factor for the reactor's being placed off the center of stability?" Grant blinked. "What's that again?" She swung a pointed finger at the ship. "Naturally," she interrupted, "the nose will float downward in the canal, hoisting the hot tubes out of the liquid at the end of the glide-ins. But you've got pilot, power plant, and wings frontside. How can you affect glide-ins at surface air density without nosing in?" The major decided she must have been reading the latest confidential files. High-viscosity liquid landing canals constituted a subject recent enough to be Security and important enough not to be bandied about outside engineering and Base Mojave. "Well, you see," Grant cleared his throat, "there're the fuel tanks along the back of the blast chamber, partly lead--" "The tanks usually are nearly empty for glide-ins," she reminded. Grant frowned. "Yes, usually empty, but still a weight factor. Then there's the automatic wing stabilizer that adjusts to the air speed and density and acts to pull up the nose--" "O.K.," she interrupted. "Now, would you lift me through the canopy, please? I'd like to sit inside a minute." "That's out," he said. "Only pilots and technicians." "All right, if you won't, I'll get up myself." She marched over to the hangar wall and pulled over boarding steps, which were braced on three pivotal tires. "Bridget, Security says pilots and mechanics." "And you're forgetting why I'm here, and besides that you're supposed to cooerdinate. Right now you're uncooerdinating." * * * * * Before Grant's eyes flashed the memory of her orders with the signatures at the bottom. She was already climbing the steps. "Just don't touch anything, that's all," he conciliated, following her up. Her seams were straight, he noted.