"Yes, darling, yes, and because that bodyguard was a complete fool. He was just one of thirty bodyguards my father had hired to protect me, year after year. But he was the biggest fool of all. He drank too much and he talked too much. Finally I made up my mind that I would be better off if I went on to Mars alone. My father had told me I could come, the trip had been carefully planned down to the smallest detail. I was to travel incognito. I was to keep to myself until I arrived at the Station and no one was supposed to know I was even on the ship, not even the captain. I'm quite sure he didn't know. I think the invitation to his cabin was a complete fabrication. In fact, I'm sure it was. I think Clakey--his real name was Ewers--was just drunk enough to make up a crazy story like that to get me away from you. "But I didn't want to get away from you, darling. I wanted to get away from him. I wanted to have a few days of complete freedom before I arrived on Mars, and perhaps after that for a day in the colony before I joined my father. I didn't care how angry he'd be when he saw me without a bodyguard, alone, wonderfully, gloriously alone and free for the first time in my life. I didn't want to be Helen Ramsey at all. I wanted to be somebody else and be completely free. "So I went into the ladies room, darling, and I put on the strangest kind of mask." "Yes," Corriston said. "I know." "You know about the mask?" "Please go on," Corriston said. "I'd rather you didn't ask me how I know that your father can take pride in at least one constructive achievement. The masks are extraordinary. I've seen one." "But how? Where? I can't believe it. I--" "Please," Corriston said. "It isn't too important. I made a necessary promise that I wouldn't tell you, not immediately. I'm asking you to trust me and go on." "Well, I secured one of those very unusual masks. From the Gresham-Ramsey Laboratories, before we left Earth. I could go there anytime I wanted to. All of the research technicians there are quite old. One of them, Thomas Webb, is really quite handsome. I might have fallen in love with him if he had been forty years younger. He showed me just how to adjust the mask. But when I went into the ladies' lounge I had more than just a mask. I had a complete thin plastic change of clothing concealed under my dress. I didn't remove my dress, only reversed my clothing so that the plastic dress covered the one I'd been wearing." Corriston said, "It was a very courageous thing for you to do."