ster shapes of a rifle turret and a couple of
missile launchers. "Have a look," he invited. Her hair tickled his
nose, brushing past him. It had a delightful sunny odor.

"How small she seems," the girl said, with the same note of wonder as
before. "And how huge when you're aboard."

Big, all right, Blades knew, and loaded to the hatches with nuclear
hellfire. But not massive. A civilian spaceship carried meteor
plating, but since that was about as useful as wet cardboard against
modern weapons, warcraft sacrificed it for the sake of mobility. The
self-sealing hull was thin magnesium, the outer shell periodically
renewed as cosmic sand eroded it.

"I'm not surprised we orbited, instead of docking," Ellen remarked.
"We'd have butted against your radar and bellied into your control
tower."

"Well, actually, no," said Blades. "Even half finished, our dock's big
enough to accommodate you, as you'll see today. Don't forget, we
anticipate a lot of traffic in the future. I'm puzzled why you didn't
accept our invitation to use it."

"Doctrine!" Warburton clipped.

The sun came past the blind and touched the officers' faces with
incandescence. Did some look startled, one or two open their mouths as
if to protest and then snap them shut again at a warning look? Blades'
spine tingled. _I never heard of any such doctrine,_ he thought,
_least of all when a North American ship drops in on a North American
Station._

"Is ... er ... is there some international crisis brewing?" he
inquired.

"Why, no." Ellen straightened from the telescope. "I'd say relations
have seldom been as good as they are now. What makes you ask?"

"Well, the reason your captain didn't--"

"Never mind," Warburton said. "We'd better continue the tour, if you
please."

Blades filed his misgivings for later reference. He might have fretted
immediately, but Ellen Ziska's presence forbade that. A sort of Pauli
exclusion principle. One can't have two spins simultaneously, can one?
He gave her his arm again. "Let's go on to Central Control," he
proposed. "That's right behind the people section."

"You know, I can't get over it," she told him softly. "This miracle
you've wrought. I've never been more proud of being human."

"Is this your first long space trip?"

"Yes, I was stationed at Port Colorado before the new Administration
reshuffled armed service assignments."

"They did? How come?"

"I don't know. Well, that is, during the election campaign