An imported Venusian quartet began to play softly. Strike ordered another round of drinks from the red-skinned Martian tending bar and turned on his stool to survey the small dance floor. The music and the subdued lights made him think of Ivy Hendricks. He really wanted to see her again. It had been a long time since that memorable flight when they had worked together to pull Admiral Gorman's flagship _Atropos_ out of a tight spot on a perihelion run. Ivy was good to work with ... good to be around. But there was apparently more to this transfer than just Ivy pulling wires to see him again. Things were tense in the System since Probe Fleet skeeterboats had discovered a race of group-minded, non-human intelligences on the planets of 40 Eridani C. They lived in frozen worlds that were untenable for humans. And they were apparently all parts of a single entity that never left the home globe ... a thing no human had seen. The group-mind. They were rabidly isolationist and they had refused any commerce with the Solar Combine. Only CSN Intelligence knew that the Eridans were warlike ... and that they were strongly suspected of having interstellar flight.... So, reflected Strike, the transfer of the _Cleopatra_ to Tethys for work under the Bureau of Research and Development meant innovations and tests. And Commander Strykalski was concerned. The beloved Old Aphrodisiac didn't take kindly to innovations. At least she never had before, and Strike could see no reason to suppose the cantankerous monitor would have changed her disposition. "There's Celia!" Cob Whitley was waving toward the dance floor. Celia Graham, trim in her Ensign's greys, was making her way through the crowd of dancers. Celia was the _Cleopatra's_ Radar Officer, and like all the rest, bound with chains of affection to the cranky old warship. The _Cleopatra's_ crew was a unit ... a team in the true sense of the word. They served in her because they wanted to ... would serve in no other. That's the way Strike ran his crew, and that's the way the crew ran Lover-Girl. Old Aphrodisiac's family was a select community. There was a handsome Martian Naval Lieutenant with Celia, but when she saw the thoughtful expression on her Captain's face, she dismissed him peremptorily. Here was something, apparently, of a family matter. "Well, I can't see anything to worry about, Skipper," she said when he had explained. "I should think you'd be glad of a chance to see Ivy again." Cob Whitley leaned precariously forward on his bar-stool to wag a finger under Celia's pretty nose. "But he doesn't know what Captain Hendricks has cooked up for Lover-Girl, and you know the old carp likes to be treated with respect." He affected a very knowing expression. "Besides, we shouldn't be gallivanting around testing Ivy's electronic eyelash-curlers when the Eridans are likely to be swooshing around old Sol any day!" "Cob, you're drunk!" snapped Celia.