Joanna made a grab for it as it bounced off and rose lazily in the air and turned slowly over. The African girl caught it before it released any of the liquid remaining in it, pushed it firmly down into the hollow space reserved for it, where it was magnetically held. But Lynne was not paying much attention. She was having enough trouble holding herself upright as her feet displayed an astonishing reluctance to keep on the floor while the rest of her wanted to describe a lazy parabola across the saloon. She did an off-to-Buffalo and wound up against Rolf's chest with his arms about her. Embarrassed she whispered fiercely, "Put me down, you _marlet_!" He grinned at her infuriatingly, replied, "I'm no _marlet_--that's a very nasty word on Mars and most of these people understand it. Don't you know you're in space?" He set her gently back on her feet, holding her steady with one hand gripping an upper arm. She knew she looked like an idiot, felt certain everyone in the saloon was laughing at her. "I thought they had artificial gravity on these ships," she said. "They do," he told her. "But it's nothing like Earth-gravity. It would use up all power if it were. You'll learn to navigate. Come on, I'll show you how." He led her unprotesting into one of the corridors outside the saloon. She pulled herself free, promptly smacked her head none too gently against the corridor wall. "I don't want a lesson now," she told him angrily. "Besides, why aren't I sick?" "You would be," he informed her with what she interpreted as a smug expression, "if you hadn't been given your full quota of shots in the Centromed this afternoon. You don't think they'd have allowed you aboard otherwise, do you?" "You had it all figured out, didn't you?" she snapped at him angrily. "I'll give odds you even said something to Alan and Ray tonight that got them involved in that horrible brawl!" "It was nothing," he said with false modesty, flicking a non-existent speck of dust from a bare forearm. "Just a bit of premeditated Machiavelli. Anyone could have managed it." "What are you trying to do to me?" she asked him desperately. "I'll even bet my headaches were induced. Why pick on _me_? I don't want to go to Mars--I never wanted to go there." "Maybe because I'm in love with you," he said simply. She ignored the intensity of his dark eyes, said, "You're not in love with me. You didn't come to Earth until that twin of yours at the brain-station sent you a message I was telepathic. You've only made love to me to get me to Mars--for some selfish purpose of your own. Try and deny it." "In view of your current mood," he replied quietly, "I'd be seven kinds of a sand-_lurtonk_ to try. You seem to have things all figured out yourself. Very well, it's your privilege to look at my actions any way you choose. But my purpose is not selfish!"