"_He's_ rolling, you mean." Delcamp had not yet recovered fully from a state of near-shock. "So _that's_ what an eidetic memory is? He knows every nut, bolt, lead, and coil in the ship!" "More than that. He's checking every move everybody makes. When they're done, you won't have to just hope everything was put together right--you'll _know_ it was." Jim was their man. * * * And Fao sidled over toward Belle. There was something new about the silver-haired girl, Belle decided instantly. The difference was slight--Belle couldn't put her finger on it at first. She seemed--quieter? Softer? More subdued? No, definitely. More feminine? No; that would be impossible. More ... more adult? Belle hated to admit it, even to herself, but that was what it was. "Deg and I got married day before yesterday," Fao confided, via tight beam. "Oh--so you're _pregnant!_" "Of course. I saw to that the first thing. I knew you'd want to be the first one to know. Oh, isn't it _wonderful_?" She seized Belle's arm and hugged it ecstatically against her side. "Just too perfectly marvelous for _anything_?" "Oh, I'm sure it is; and I'm so happy for you, Fao!" And it would have taken the mind of a Garlock to perceive anything either false or forced in thought or bearing. Nevertheless, when Belle went into Garlock's room that night, storm signals were flying high in her almost-topaz eyes. "Fao Talaho-Delcamp is _pregnant_!" she stormed, "and it's all _your_ fault!" "Uh-huh," he demurred, trying to snap her out of her obviously savage mood. "Not me, ace. Not a chance in the world. It was Deggi." "You ... you _weasel_! You know very well, Clee Garlock, what I meant. If you hadn't given her that treatment she'd have kept on fighting with him and they wouldn't have been married and had any children for positively _years_. So now she'll have the first double-Prime baby and it ought to be _mine_. I'm older than she is--our group is 'way ahead of theirs--we have the first and _only_ starship--and then you do _that_. And you wouldn't give _me_ that treatment. Oh, no--just to _her_, that bleached-blonde! I'd like to strangle you to death with my own bare hands!" "What a hell of a logic!" Garlock had been trying to keep his own temper in leash, but the leash was slipping. "Assume I tried to work on you--assume I succeeded--what would you be? What would I have? What age do you think this is--that of the Vikings? When SOP in getting a wife was to beat her unconscious with a club and drag her into the longboat by her hair? Hardly! I do not want and will not have a conquered woman. Nor a spoiled-rotten, mentally-retarded brat...." "You unbearable, conceited, overbearing jerk! Why, I'd rather...." "Get out! And _this_ time, _stay_ out!" Belle got out--and if door and frame had not been built of super-steel, both would have been wrecked by the blast of energy she loosed in closing the door behind her.