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systems and course check, made sure my double-check tape run was progressing properly, then went to the galley. A synthburger and coffee were enough to take care of what little appetite I had, and these I carried back to my cabin with me, slamming the door again behind me. When I’d come out of the galley with my food Val had been back on his couch, but it was obvious he’d left it briefly by the presence of the blanket he was wrapped in. He made sure to begin shivering violently as I passed, but he hadn’t done anything about that stupid grin. I swallowed my meal with my nose stuffed into a book of my own, read for a short while after that, then declared official ship’s night.
    When I woke up I discovered it was past nine hundred hours Arbitrary Ship Time, but that didn’t mean much. I’d started the night early when I’d gone to bed, and there wasn’t anything on the ship that called for crack-of-dawn rising. I stretched hard and then lay still for a minute, grinning when I remembered the very discreet push against my cabin door the night before. I’d been lying in the dark for a while, waiting to fall asleep, when I’d heard the faint creak of the door in its frame. It had been trying to swing obligingly inward, but the lock I’d flipped on had kept it from doing so. I’d been wondering whether Val would try to catch me asleep and vulnerable, and now I knew; gentlemanly conduct goes by the boards when you’ve been heated up and not been given a chance to cool down. I’d had some of the same trouble myself the night before, but it was worth it if Val had suffered more.
    I got up and visited the bathroom, got a cup of coffee and ran the routine control room checks, then went to start my morning loosening up. That was when Val showed up, looking well rested and fresh from the shower. His cobalt blue exercise shorts looked fresh and clean too, as though he’d been using the launderer. I still didn’t need the launderer, and Val’s eyes showed he was well aware of that as he sat down on a corner stool to watch me. As I’ve mentioned I’m considered big for a woman, but I’m also nicely well-endowed. The Absari clinicians didn’t have to touch my body when they’d matched me to Bellna, the Tildorian princess I’d decoyed for; that body went very well with the outstandingly beautiful face I’d been given to play the part of Bellna, the face that was now mine as well as hers. I still wasn’t used to being a redhead, but Val didn’t seem to miss my original brown hair and eyes. He watched closely as I twisted, bent, stretched and jumped, saying not a single word, but as the saying goes, his eyes spoke volumes.
    When I finished the exercising, I went for a shower. I hadn’t skimped on anything I needed to keep up decent muscle tone, but I’d intended running through a couple of the stricter forms designed to keep your fighting muscles well oiled and then had changed my mind. To deny that Val’s stare had gotten to me would be a waste of time; if he hadn’t been there, I would have done those forms. I slapped the water-flow switch with more strength than was strictly necessary, absolutely disgusted with myself. So what if his stare was pure evaluation, the owner of a breeding ranch looking over his bloodstock, or a hungry carnivore considering the taste of the prey he was about to pounce on? Was I a placid broodmare or a cute little bunnyrabbit that I couldn’t tell him to go to hell and then ignore him?
    I closed my eyes and let the cool water fall directly over my face and head, something that always made me feel as though I stood under a falls on a planet instead of in a sub-coffin-sized shower stall on a ship using recirculated water. I couldn’t help remembering the thoughts I’d had about how my body looked.
    Once, when very young, I had gone with my mother to visit some friends of hers. The people had been animal lovers, and they had had dogs and cats and birds and rodents and all sorts of cute