"I know what to do." She unbolted a cover, wrought briefly with pliers and splicer, and in ten minutes was done. "It doesn't seem to make sense to me that a person of your obvious intelligence, manifestly knowing enough to make such minor repairs yourself, would go so far from home, alone in such a small ship, without any tools. Burnouts and shorts are apt to happen any time, you know." "Not in vessels of the--." Again Kathryn felt that unpronounceable symbol. She also felt the stranger stiffen in offended dignity. "We of the higher orders, you should know, do not perform labor. We think. We direct. Others work, and do their work well, or suffer accordingly. This is the first time in nine full four-cycle periods that such a thing has happened, and it will be the last. The punishment which I shall mete out to the guilty mechanic will insure that. I shall, at end, have his life." "Oh, come, now!" Kathryn protested. "Surely it's no life-and-death mat--" "Silence!" came curt command. "It is intolerable that one of the lower orders should attempt to--" "Silence yourself!" At the fierce power of the riposte the creature winced, physically and mentally. "I did this bit of dirty work for you because you apparently couldn't do it for yourself. I did not object to the matter-of-course way you accepted it, because some races are made that way and can't help it. But if you insist on keeping yourself placed five rungs above me on any ladder you can think of, I'll stop being a lady--or even a good Girl Scout--and start doing things about it, and I'll start at any signal you care to call. Get ready, and say when!" * * * * * The stranger, taken fully aback, threw out a lightning tentacle of thought; a feeler which was stopped cold a full foot from the girl's radiant armor. This was a human female--or was it? It was not. No human being had ever had, nor ever would have, a mind like that. Therefore: "I have made a grave error," the thing apologized handsomely, "in thinking that you are not at least my equal. Will you grant me pardon, please?" "Certainly--if you don't repeat it. But I still don't like the idea of your having that mechanic skinned alive." She thought intensely, lip caught between strong white teeth. "Perhaps there is a way. Where are you going, and when do you want to get there?" "To my home planet," pointing out, mentally, its location in the Galaxy. "I must be there in two hundred of your G-P hours." "I see." Kathryn nodded her head. "You can--if you promise that you will do nothing whatever to punish your mechanic. And remember that I can tell whether you really mean it or not." "As I promise, so I do. But suppose that I do not promise?"