Since antigravity, artificial gravity, and low-thrust take-offs were still in the realm of science-fiction, even the luxury liners like the Valkyrie had to bed their passengers down in shock-absorbing couches until the ship was free of gravitation. So it wasn't until we'd achieved escape velocity from Earth that I saw the girl again.

I'd decided to wander into the lounge and try to locate her. It would be an easy task if she were present, what with her startling good looks. But it turned out to be even simpler than that.

She came to me.

I was just easing myself out of my couch, when my cabin door opened and closed. And locked.

That last part intrigued me even before I turned about. I was wondering what sort of menace I had to meet, and bewailing the fact that the collapser was still in my luggage, when I saw who my visitor was. I started to smile, but the smile left as I saw the saw-edged steak knife in her hand.

"Listen, whoever you are!" she said. Her voice was low, angrily intense, but still a pleasure to hear, somehow.

"I'm listening, I assure you!" I said, politely. "A voice like yours doesn't caress these tired old eardrums every day."

She accorded my compliment a smile, but it was a bleak one, and there was a certain wry lift to her left eyebrow. "Very suave, I'm sure," she said. "But I'm not in the mood, thank you. Now, you just sit down on your bunk and behave, and—"

"Mind if I get a cigarette?" I asked, gesturing toward my traveling case. I tried to be casual about it, but I must have failed. I lose my head around women, as I've said.

"I'll get them for you," she said, waving the knife's glittering blade at me. I moved away and sat on the edge of my bunk. She flicked the clasp open, and spread the two halves apart. There were two shirts and some underwear in the case, plus the collapser. Not a cigarette to be seen. She looked at me, narrow-eyed.

"I don't smoke," I explained weakly.

"You Amnesty-bearers!" she grated between even, white teeth. "Ready to destroy everybody with impunity, aren't you! You wouldn't even wait to find out what I wanted!"

"I haven't said a word," I pointed out delicately.

"You lied about the cigarettes," she accused.

"How would you treat a stranger who burst into your cabin with an unsheathed knife?" I said, exasperated.

She looked down at the knife, and reddened. "Maybe I was a bit abrupt about this. It's just that—" Her face suddenly crinkled up, and her deep blue-violet eyes burst into tears. Then the knife fell to the carpet, and her face was buried in her hands. I leaned forward and removed the knife from within her reach, then took her by the shoulders.

She whimpered hopelessly, between shuddering sobs, "Am I under arrest?"

"Depends," I said. "Depends entirely on why you came in here like this. And what my possession of the Amnesty has to do with it. And how," I added, puzzled, "you seemed to know so much about Amnesty-bearers and their vile dispositions!"

She took her hands from her face, streaked with tears, and said, with a shy grin, "I was guessing at that part. I just kind of assumed they'd all be pretty intolerant. Who wouldn't be, with all that power?"

"Well, I wouldn't for one," I said defensively. "I only bite when I'm bitten."

She found a handkerchief somewhere and began sopping up the wet spots from her complexion; a complexion, I noted happily, that did not come off with water.

"Have a chair," I said, and rang for the steward. "I hope you drink?"

"Not a lot," she admitted. "But I could use one right now."

"Good," I said, watching her as she poised gracefully on the chair before my cabin's private stereo set. "By the way, my name's Jery. Jery Delvin."

She flushed scarlet again, and said, "Mine is White."

"First name?" I asked. She paused. "What is your first name?"

She looked at the carpet. "Snow," she said softly.

"For real?" I said. "Like with the dwarfs?"

She nodded, as one who'd been over the same conversational ground many wearisome times in the past. "Mother was a Walt Disney fan, back in the Age of Movies."

I shook my head, and rang for the steward again. "I think we both could use a drink."

Later, the puzzled steward departed for the dining salon to return the steak knife which Snow had "accidentally" picked up. We sipped our drinks in mutual silence for a minute or two, regarding one another over the rims of our tumblers. To me, Snow was looking better by the minute. I even had a momentary thought of flashing the Amnesty at her to see if those red velvet lips could fulfill in a tactile way the promise they made visually.

But instead, I said, "Tell me, do you always attack Amnesty-bearers with the nearest weapon you can lay hold of?"

Snow laughed musically, shaking her head. "I didn't mean to come in at full threat, Jery," she said softly. "I just wanted some sort of defense in case—Well, Amnesty-bearers think they can ask anything of a person, and—"

She left the explanation unfinished, but I found myself glad I hadn't tried pulling rank for a fast romance. "I'm very curious to know just what you did come in here for, Snow. Or did you just want a peep at the Amnesty? I saw you react when Baxter let it slip back at the spaceport."

"Is that who that was? Chief Baxter, of International Security?" she exclaimed.

I realized I was blurting things, and sighed, "Damn, I'm talking too much."

Snow's eyes gave me the once-over, and she tilted her head to one side, curiously. "You know, Jery, you don't look like a government official. You seem to be just an average man."

I thought of my dossier and frowned. "Not quite average, I'm afraid. I can be hopelessly confused by women."

Snow digested this, then shrugged. "Like I said, you seem to be just an average man."

I laughed. "I guess I'd better explain."

I told her all about my erstwhile job at Solar Sales, and my mental bloc regarding females. When I finished, she was fighting a grin. It was a losing fight. The grin won.

"If I'd known that, I'd have skipped that steak knife and just entered in a bikini," she said.

"You wouldn't have to go even that far," I told her. "One friendly wink of your big blue eyes and I'd be putty."

Snow raised her eyebrows appraisingly. "Hmmm. I'll have to remember that in the future." It was in fun, but I caught a tinge of serious consideration in it. It gave me an uneasy feeling, a feeling that brought me sharply back to my main query, from which I'd been sidetracked a few moments before.

"But you still haven't told me why you came in here."

"To find you. I figured that if an Amnesty-bearer was on his way to Mars, there was big trouble. And I think I know what the trouble is, but I need some of the answers you can give me."

"What do you want with government information?" I said, trying to be stiffly formal. "And what makes you think I'd give it to you?"

"Two reasons," she said, answering my last question first. "I can simply wink a big blue eye—unless you've been pulling my leg—and get all the information I desire."

"That's only one reason," I said carefully. "What else makes you think I'd tell you the information?"

Snow eyed me soberly, and her face hovered between grim determination and fathomless concern. "My brother Ted is one of the missing Space Scouts."

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