'I've blocked it out of my mind. Oh yes. Tom Mix. And his Ralston Straight Shooters. With the Wrangler. That wretched Wrangler. And that cereal! And those eternal goddam box tops. You know what we're in for don't you? Another session with Orphan Annie and her li'l decoder badge ... we'll have to listen to ads for Ovaltine and then those numbers read out for us to take down and decode – to find out what Annie does on Monday. God.' She bent to reach for her drink, and he could not resist peering with near-professional interest as the top of her dress gave way to show the natural line of her small, articulated pale breasts.

Put by this spectacle in a reasonably good mood, Eric said playfully but cautiously, 'One day we'll jot down the numbers the fake announcer gives over the fake radio, decode them with the Orphan Annie decoder badge, and—' The message will say, he thought glumly, Make a separate peace with the reegs. At once.

'I know,' Phyllis said, and thereupon finished for him, '"It's hopeless, Earthmen. Give up now. This is the Monarch of the reegs speaking; looky heah, y'all: I've infiltrated radio station WMAL in Washington, D.C., and I'm going to destroy you."' She somberly drank from her tall stemmed glass. '"And in addition the Ovaltine you've been drinking—"'

'I wasn't going to say precisely that.' But she had come awfully darn close. Nettled, Eric said, 'Like the rest of your family you've got a sense that requires you to interrupt before a non-blooder—'

'A what?'

'This is what we call you,' he said grimly. 'You Ackermen.'

'Go ahead then, doctor.' Her gray eyes lit with amusement. 'Say your tiny say.'

Eric said, 'Never mind. Who's the guest?'

The great pale eyes of the woman had never seemed so large, so composed; they dominated and commanded with their utter inner universe of certitude.