"You know, I like it," he said then. "It fits you."
"Not that, Temple. I'm not going to 'Doctor' you."
"I'll call you 'boss', then, like Stella does. Anyway, that lets me tell you that I like it myself. I really think that it did something for me."
"_Something_ did something for you, that's for sure. I'm mighty glad you're aboard, and I hope ... here they come. Hi, Hark! Hi, Stella!"
"Hi, Jarve," said Chief Linguist Harkins, and:
"Hi, boss--what's holding us up?" asked his assistant, Stella Wing. She was about five feet four. Her eyes were a tawny brown; her hair a flamboyant auburn mop. Perhaps it owed a little of its spectacular refulgence to chemistry, Hilton thought, but not too much. "Let us away! Let the lions roar and let the welkin ring!"
"Who's been feeding _you_ so much red meat, little squirt?" Hilton laughed and turned away, meeting Sandra in the corridor. "Okay, chick, take 'em away. We'll cover you. Luck, girl."
And in the control room, to Sawtelle, "Needle-beam cover, please; set for minimum aperture and lethal blast. But no firing, Captain Sawtelle, until I give the order."
The _Perseus_ was surrounded by hundreds of natives. They were all adult, all naked and about equally divided as to sex. They were friendly; most enthusiastically so.
"Jarve!" Sandra squealed. "They're _telepathic_. Very strongly so! I never imagined--I never felt anything like it!"
"Oh, no. Just the opposite. They love us ... in a way that's simply indescribable. I don't like this telepathy business ... not clear ... foggy, diffuse ... this woman is _sure_ I'm her long-lost great-great-a-hundred-times grandmother or something--_You!_ Slow down. Take it _easy_! They want us all to come out here and live with ... no, not _with_ them, but each of us alone in a whole house with them to wait on us! But first, they all want to come aboard...."
"_What?_" Hilton yelped. "But are you _sure_ they're friendly?"
"We're all sure, Jarve. No question about it."
"Bring two of them aboard. A man and a woman."
"You won't bring _any_!" Sawtelle thundered. "Hilton, I had enough of your stupid, starry-eyed, ivory-domed blundering long ago, but this utterly idiotic brainstorm of letting enemy aliens aboard us ends all civilian command. Call your people back aboard or I will bring them in by force!"