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hand," he ordered. She did. "Open your eye." She tried but after a little lash fluttering, it was clear she could not keep it open on her own. He hadn't wanted to look at her, let alone touch her, but as her lower lip began to quiver, he gave in.
    Steadying his hand on her cheek, he used his thumb and forefinger to gently pry her eye open. Her facial muscles strained against his effort for a moment before she relaxed and met his gaze. He didn't find any eyelash or particle but he did see a definite twinkle of mischief... just before she tweaked his nose.
    "Gotcha!" she said with a laugh.
    He jerked back in his chair and looked at her as though she were unbalanced. "What was that for?"
    Cherry shrugged lightly. "I wanted to make you look at me and I did it. You were being very rude, you know. In fact, speaking of rude, you have yet to apologize."
    He slowly swiveled his chair back to its usual position and stared at the monitor. "I told you, the importance of my mission—"
    Cherry gripped the arm of his chair and turned it back to her. "Look at me and say I'm sorry or you won't have any peace for the rest of this trip."
    Gallant decided she was quite capable of carrying out her threat and, considering how long this trip was actually going to take, he acceded. He looked straight at her pretty face and murmured, "I apologize for stunning you and taking you away without your permission."
    Cherry's smile broadened. The expression on his face was one of extreme discomfort. "See? That wasn't so hard. And now that we got that business out of the way, tell me about this grid."
    "It's a navigational device."
    She smirked at his simple answer. "I gathered that much. I want to know what all these blips and markings mean. And what are all the red sparkles at the edge? It looks like the tail of a comet or something."
    Gallant realized if he didn't answer, she would just keep prodding. "That's an ion trail."
    Cherry frowned at the screen. Dot had said the blue spot of light was this ship and, even though the movement across the grid was slow, it looked as though the ship was following the ion trail. The distance between the last red sparkle and the blue spot appeared to be exactly the same as it was earlier. "You said something about an ion trail before. Is there a ship on the other end of that trail?"
    Now it was Gallant's turn to frown. He hadn't expected intelligence along with all her other attributes. "Probably. But it's too far away to be picked up on the grid."
    She had an inkling that she had just learned something important but she couldn't put her finger on it. "And where's Earth?"
    "Also too far away." He knew she was going to have to be told the truth sooner or later but he opted for as late as possible. Since it was clear she would not permit him to ignore her, he thought distraction might buy him a little more time.
    "Do you play cubit?" he asked as he reached under the control panel and slid out an extension, creating a table between them.
    Cherry shook her head. "I don't think I've ever heard of it."
    He pulled open a drawer on his side of the table and took out four small cubes which were a different color on each of their six sides: blue, red, yellow, green, orange and purple. He put them in the center of the table. Then he placed six penny-sized markers bearing the same colors as the cubes in front of Cherry and gave himself another identical set.
    "It's fairly easy," Gallant said. "The object of the game is to get four of each color. After an initial toss of the cubes, you have two more tries, during which you can reroll as many cubes as you like to try to get four of one color. If you make a set, or quad, you put aside that color marker. The first one to get rid of all their markers, wins."
    "Sounds something like a game called Yahtzee that I played in Outerworld a long time ago."
    Gallant raised an eyebrow. "Oh? Perhaps you'll teach me that one next. Does it involve gambling?"
    "Not usually."
    "Then that's one big