"Are you practicing to go into Grand Opera, or," and I looked significantly at the spot where he'd concealed the tweezers, "are you just studying to be a female impersonator?"
"Heh," said Sergeant Shane, still crimson, "quit your kiddin', Corporal Cork. I aaa, ahh, er—"
"Okay, Lochinvar," I sighed. "Who is it this time?"
Shane is as ugly as a Venusian mud fence. But his big pan wrinkled into an expression resembling a cross between sheer ecstasy and stomach pains.
"Varda," he said, sighing deeply.
"Varda?" I sat down on the edge of his bunk. "Who's this Varda? Never heard you mention her."
Shane sighed again like a sick calf.
"I just met her, this very afternoon."
I blinked. We'd only been moored here on Venus since morning. Our big battle wagon, the F.S.S. Western Hemisphere, had put in as part of the Fleet's much vaunted Good Will Tour of the Interplanetary belt. Shane had already been ashore, carrying a message from the Admiral to our consulate. And evidently he must have run into this Varda wench some where along the line before coming back to the ship.
"Don't tell me," I said. "You met her this morning, after you'd taken the papers to the consulate for old Ironpants. You probably got thirsty and dropped into a joint for a quick nip on the way back to the ship."
"Howdja know?" Shane grinned guiltily.
"My priceless intuition," I said. Then, catching him off guard, I thrust, "What were you doing with those tweezers?"
He flushed. "Aw, cut it. Okay, so I was plucking my eyebrows. Is that a crime?"
"It is for a Space Marine," I said.
"Varda," Sergeant Shane said valiantly, "thinks my big bushy eyebrows mar my naturally handsome appearance."
I choked, then managed to say, "So itsy-bitsy Shanesy had to tweak 'em out to please itty-bitty Varda, huh?"
Sergeant Shane stood up. He has a build like a weight lifter. Long arms with big red paws. Shoulders wide enough to hold a battle wagon on either side of his cauliflowered ears—but only reaches a total of five feet four inches from the floor.
"So you'd like to make something of it?" he asked.
"And lose my liberty ticket?" I answered. "Not on your life. I've seen too much of that damned brig in the past year. Go pick a scrap with someone who doesn't care about shore leave."
Sergeant Shane scratched his thatch of tow hair, then relaxed.
"Okay," he said. "But no more cracks. If you're a good guy I'll even let you meet Varda."
"Is it true love this time?" I asked.
Shane put a big paw on my shoulder.
"Corky, so help me, this is it. There's not another wen—I mean girl, in the universe to compare with Varda." His square jaw thrust forth to add an honest emphasis to his statement.
It was always true love with Shane. Every time. Every port.
"I can hardly wait," I told him.
VARDA was a Venusian cutie, a fact which my chum Sergeant Shane hadn't mentioned. She had hair that was blacker than black and hung all the way to her pale white—and very lovely—shoulders. Her eyes had the typical almond Venusian slant to them, and were also ebon. She was a looker. There was no doubt about it. And this fact surprised me not a little. Shane generally wound up with something
