“Just an adventure star,” Sassinak was explaining. “Had fan clubs, posters, all that. My best friend and I dreamed of having adventures all over the galaxy, men at our feet...”

“Well, you seem to have made it,” said Lunzie dryly. “Or so your crew let me know.”

Sassinak actually blushed; the effect was startling. “It’s not much like the daydreams, though. Carin never got a scratch on her, only a few artistically placed streaks of soot. Sometimes that soot was all she had on, but mostly it was silver or gold snugsuits, open halfway down her perfect front. She could toss twenty pirates over her head with one hand, gun down another ten villains with the other, and belt out her themesong without missing a beat. When I was a child, it never dawned on me that someone supposedly being starved and beaten in a thorium mine shouldn’t have all those luscious curves. Or that climbing naked up a volcanic cliff does bad things to long scarlet fingernails.”