After carefully wiping his palm on his coatsleeve he replaced his unlit cigar in his broad, gleaming face. He was in the smiling sensuality of a daydream when the powder-room door clicked. His wife was beautiful. Uptilting his cigar he watched her drift down the aisle. With one scarlet-tipped finger she prevented her diaphanous skirt from floating very high above her knees. A lovely lady. He champed on the cigar. It's not every man whose wife is a natural blonde ex-starlet young enough to be his daughter. But a little discipline was in order. * * * * * "Landa, I wish you had remembered to have Hykato pack my golf things." "Edwin please, this null gravity is upsetting my tummy." "Well, it's the least you could have done." "And how would we have gotten it on the ship?" her voice shrilled unexpectedly. "You embarrassed me enough as it was." "Listen, I'm the Commissioner. No two-bit pilot is going to tell me what I can't take. The luggage limit is ridiculous!" "What are you complaining about? He let you take everything, didn't he?" "After you smiled at him." "I was only trying to be pleasant." "Pleasant is it? Last time you said it was to influence him to take all my luggage." "Yeah and you got sore because you weren't a big enough shot to swing the deal alone," her voice rasped through its lady-like veneer. "That's a lie. Furthermore I don't want to catch you smiling at him again." "I give up," she exclaimed and reached for a telemag. But he wouldn't drop it there. "I didn't like that fellow's looks. Pads in his shoulders, little waxed mustache. Who does he think he is, Captain Future?" "Oh, don't be funny. Just think what he thinks of you after what you said to him in front of all the other passengers and crew." "Taking his side now?" "I am not." She gave a little sniff and fumbled for her handkerchief. "You're so mean and masterful I'm surprised you don't make me go up front and tell him what a sap he is." "He was a sap smiling at my wife all right." He uplifted his cigar with a mollified grin. "He wasted a smile there. Two-bit pilot, who does he think he is?" "He did smile at me though," she appended in a small voice. His voice snapped out again: "And you smiled back!" He ground his unlit cigar into the ash tray. "I think you were just now trying to flatter me; I think you were trying to turn me off the track when you said you'd go up and tell him what a sap he is." "I was not." "Don't try to wiggle out of it. That's what you said." "All right, if you think I should, I will." "Well now--" He paused smiling and carefully trimmed the crushed end of his cigar with a gold plated cigar cutter before he continued: "If you insist, go ahead." "There's not much time left," she said, pointing at the neon-dialed clock above the powder-room door. Beneath it hung an orange luminescent sign: U. S. Eastern Standard Earth Time Equivalent.