"I got a note in my mailbox today," I said casually. "Yeah?" he asked, just as quietly. "Must have been put there as soon as I touched down this morning. Somebody wants me to go to work for them. They're paying high--too high, maybe. Hear anything about a big job coming off somewhere?" Ming grinned. "If you mean that little letter from Transolar, yeah, I know about that." He got serious, and moved closer. "But that's all I know, and nobody else knows even that much. Sure, something's cooking, but nobody knows what it is. I--" He broke off. "You've got company. Boy, _have_ you got company!" I looked in the backbar mirror. A girl had come in the doorway and was walking toward me. Her dress tightened in intriguing places. Her face was as much of a treat. High-cheeked, brown-eyed, with a small, uptilted nose and a full mouth, it was framed by short curly hair the color of new copper wire. I liked it. So did the spacemen and the dockworkers sitting at the bar. One or two half-rose to invite her to join them, but they sat down again when they saw who she was headed for. There was something about that hair. I'd seen it before, somewhere. The guy next to me got up and slid out of the way. I let my eyes stay on the bottles on the backbar until she sat down beside me. I gave Ming a look. He nodded, and moved down the bar. "Ash?" The voice was low, but crisp. It had whispers and murmurs in it, too, and I knew I'd heard it before. "I'm Pat McKay." I turned my head and looked at her. Her dress, tight as paint from hem to bodice, was mysteriously loose in the sleeves. Ruffles at each shoulder hid bulges that Mother Nature never put there. They looked more like twin shoulder holsters. They were. * * * * * And the last time I'd seen her, she was seventeen--eighteen, maybe--in a ball gown, her hair long then, curling around her shoulders. And the voice hadn't been as controlled, or as crisp, but she'd been saying, "You're a good dancer, Mr. Holcomb. Not much on the light conversation, but a good leader." I'd swept her around another couple, and kept my cheek away from hers. "The Academy is geared to the production of good leaders, Pat. Good conversationalists, on the other hand, are born, not made." She laughed--a giddy party laugh from a girl who dated Academy boys exclusively, who loved the glitter and pomp of graduation ceremonies, who hung around the Academy all she could, who had been to Graduation Balls before, and would certainly be to a number of them again, before she managed to separate all the black and silver uniforms she'd danced with and found herself a man from inside one of them. An Academy drag--a number in a score of little black books. "Like Harry--oh, pardon me, it's Graduation Night--like Mr. Thorsten, you mean?" And she looked up at me, raking my face with her green eyes. "If you will." "You're jealous, Mr. Holcomb," she said, breaking out her best little tease manner.