Well, ma'am, O'Rielly searched every cranny where even a three-tailed mouse of Venus could have stowed away. His first flight, and O'Rielly saw himself washed out, busted to sweeper on the blast-off stands of some God-forsaken satellite. He staggered back into his watch room. And his brain was suddenly taken apart and slapped together again. Felt that way. She was sitting on his bunk. No three-tailed mouse. No Old Woman either. Oh, she was a female human, though, this creature at which O'Rielly stood gaping. Yes, ma'am! "I was in your burner room." Her voice matched the rest of her, a blend of loveliness unlike anything outside a guy's most secret dreams. "I couldn't stand the heat any longer and I couldn't open that big door. So I moved one of your controls a tiny bit. All the noise in there, naturally you couldn't hear me walk out while your back was turned resetting the control." * * * * * O'Rielly suddenly felt like turning her over his knee and whaling her until she couldn't sit for a year. This, mind you, he felt in an age where no Earth guy for a thousand years had dared raise so much as a breath against woman's supremacy in all matters. That male character trait, however, did not seem to be the overpowering reason why O'Rielly, instead of laying violent hands upon this one's person, heard himself saying in sympathetic outrage, "A shame you had to go to all that bother to get out here!" "You're so kind. But I'm afraid I became rather sticky and smelly in there." "They ought to cool the air in there with perfume! I'll drop a suggestion in the Old Woman's box first chance I get." "You're so thoughtful. And do you have bathing facilities?" "That door right there. Oh, let me open it for you!" "You're so sweet." Her big dark eyes glowed with such pure innocence that O'Rielly could have torn down the universe and rebuilt it just for her. Yes, ma'am, O'Rielly was floating on a pink cloud with heavenly music in his head. Never felt so fine before. Except on the Venus layover when he'd been roped into a dice game with a bunch of Venus lads who had a jug to cheer one's parting with one's money. A bell suddenly clanged fit to wake the dead while the overhead lights flashed wildly. Only the watch room door. Only Callahan here now. Old buzzard had a drooped nose like a pick, chin like a shovel. When he talked he was like digging a hole in front of himself. "Well, what about that control?" "What control?" "Your fusion control that got itself two points low!" "Oh, that little thing." Callahan said something through his teeth, then studied O'Rielly sharply. "Hey, you been wetting your whistle on that Venus vino again? Lemme smell your breath! Bah. Loaded yourself full of chlorophyll again probably. All right, stand aside whilst I see your burner." "Charmed to, Burner Chief Callahan, sir," O'Rielly said while bowing gracefully.