try to keep them from getting killed. It's our profession. We practise
it even on our own behalf. We want to stay alive. So since you make
such drastic threats, we will take you where you want to go.
Especially since we're going there anyhow."

"You don't believe anything I've said!" It was a statement.

"Not a word," admitted Calhoun. "But you'll probably tell us something
more believable presently. When did you eat last?"

"Yesterday."

"Would you rather do your own cooking?" asked Calhoun politely. "Or
would you permit me to ready a snack?"

"I--I'll do it," she said.

She drank her coffee first, however, and then Calhoun showed her how
to punch the readier for such-and-such dishes, to be extracted from
storage and warmed or chilled, as the case might be, and served at
dialed-for intervals. There was also equipment for preparing food for
oneself, in one's own chosen manner--again an item to help make
solitude not unendurable.

Calhoun deliberately immersed himself in the Galactic Directory,
looking up the planet Orede. He was headed there, but he'd had no
reason to inform himself about it before. Now he read with every
appearance of absorption.

The girl ate daintily. Murgatroyd watched with highly amiable