"Prudes," scoffed Ti. "You're not going to let them start telling you what to do now, are you?" But his scorn was tinged with anxiety.

"I'm not going to start telling them what I am doing either," said Silver pointedly. "Are you?"

"God, no." He waved his hands in horrified negation.

"So, we are in agreement. Unfortunately, that"—she pointed regretfully at the blouse—"is something I can't hide. I couldn't wear it without someone demanding that I explain where I got it."

"Oh," he said, in the blunted tone of one struck by incontrovertible fact. "Yeah, I—guess I should have thought of that. Do you suppose you could put it away for a time? I've only been taking my gravity leaves on the Rodeo side because all the shuttle bonus berths at Orient IV get nailed by the senior guys. Well, and you can log a lot more hours here faster, with all the freight hauling. But I'll have my shuttle commander's rating and be back to permanent jump status in just a few more cycles."

"It can't be shared, either," said Silver. "You see, the thing about the books and the vid dramas and things, besides being small and easy to hide, is that they can be passed all around the group without being used up. Nobody gets left out. So I can get, um, a lot of cooperation when I want to, say—get away for a little time by myself?" A toss of her head indicated the privacy they were presently enjoying.

"Ah," gulped Ti. He paused. "I—hadn't realized you were passing the stuff around."

"Not share?" said Silver. "That would be really wrong." She stared at him in mild offense, and pushed the blouse back toward him on the surge of the emotion, quickly, before she weakened. She almost explained further, then thought better of it.

Best Ti didn't know about the uproar when one of the book-discs, accidentally left in a viewer, had been found by one of the Habitat's downsider staff and turned over to Dr. Yei. The search—barely alerted, they had scrambled successfully to hide the rest of the contraband library, but the fierce intensity of the search had been warning enough to Silver of how serious was her offense in the eyes of her authorities. There had been two more surprise inspections since, even though no more discs had been found. She could take a hint.