«What?» Sharon exclaimed. «When we’re at war?»
«Why not?» Diaz said. «The ambassador of United Asia gave a party for our President just yesterday. I watched on the newscreen. Big social event.»
«But that’s different,» Sharon protested. «The war goes on in space, not on Earth, and—»
«We don’t blow up each other’s Lunar bases, either,» Bailey said. «Too close to home. So once in a while we have occasion to, uh, parley is the official word. Actually, the last time I went over—couple years ago now—it was to return a crater-bug we’d borrowed and bring some alga-blight antibiotic they needed. They poured me full of excellent vodka.»
«I’m surprised you admit this so openly,» said Naomi.
«No secret, my dear,» purred Diaz in his best grandee manner, twirling an imaginary mustache. «The newscreens simply don’t mention it. Wouldn’t be popular, I suppose.»
«Oh, people wouldn’t care, seeing it was the Corps,» Sharon said.
«That’s right,» Naomi smiled. «The Corps can do no wrong.»
«Why, thankee kindly.» Diaz grinned at Sharon, chucked her under the chin and kissed her. She held back an instant, having met him only this afternoon. But of course she knew what a date with a Corpsman usually meant, and he knew she knew, and she knew he knew she knew, so before long she relaxed and enjoyed it.
The giro stopped those proceedings by descending to the street and rolling three blocks to the cantina. They entered a low, noisy room hung with bullfight posters and dense with smoke. Diaz threw a glance around and wrinkled his nose. «Sanamabiche!» he muttered. «The tourists have discovered it.»
«Uh-huh,» Bailey answered in the same disappointed sotto voce. «Loud tunics, lard faces, 3V, and a juke wall. But let’s have a couple drinks, at least, seeing we’re here.»
«That’s the trouble with being in space two or three years at a time,» Diaz said. «You lose track. Well…» They found a booth.
The waiter recognized him, even after so long a lapse, and called the proprietor. The old man bowed nearly to the floor and begged they accept tequila from his private stock. «No, no, Señor Capitán, conserva el dinero, por favor.» The girls were delighted—picturesqueness seemed harder to come by each time Diaz made Earthfall—and the evening was off to a good start in spite of everything.
But then someone paid the juke. The wall came awake with a scrawny blonde fourteen-year-old, the latest fashion in sex queens, wearing a grass skirt and three times life size.
Bingle-jingle-jungle-bang-POW!
Bingle-jingle-jangle-bang-UGH!
Uh’m uh redhot Congo gal an’ Uh’m lookin’ fuh a pal
Tuh share muh bingle-jingle-bangle-jungle-ugh-YOW!
«What did you say?» Sharon called through the saxophones.
«Never mind,» Diaz grunted. «They wouldn’t’ve included it in your school Spanish anyway.»
«Those things make me almost wish World War Four would start,» Naomi said bitterly.
Bailey’s mouth tightened. «Don’t talk like that,» he said. «Wasn’t Number Three a close enough call for the race? Without even accomplishing its aims, for either side. I’ve seen—Any war is too big.»
Lest they become serious, Diaz said thoughtfully above the racket: «You know, it should be possible to do something about those Kallikak walls. Like, maybe, an oscillator. They’ve got oscillators these days which’ll even goof a solid-state apparatus at close range.»
«The FCC wouldn’t allow that,» Bailey said. «Especially since it’d interfere with local 3V reception.»
«That’s bad? Besides, you could miniaturize the oscillator so it’d be hard to find. Make it small enough to carry in your pocket. Or in your body, if you could locate a doctor who’d, uh, perform an illegal operation. I’ve seen uplousing units no bigger than—»
«You could strew ’em around town,» Bailey said, getting interested. «Hide ’em in obscure corners and—»
Ugga-wugga-wugga, hugga-hugga me, do!
«I wish it would stop,» Naomi said. «I came here to get to know you, Carl, not that thing.»
Bailey sat straight. One hand, lying on the table, shaped a fist. «Why not?» he said.
«Eh?» Diaz asked.
Bailey rose. «Excuse me a minute.» He bowed to the girls and made his way through the dancers to the wall control. There he switched the record off.
Silence fell like a meteor. For a moment, voices were stilled, too. Then a large tourist came barreling off his bar stool and yelled, «Hey, wha’d’you think you’re—»
«I’ll refund your money, sir,» Bailey said mildly. «But the noise bothers the lady I’m with.»
«Huh? Hey, who d’yuh think yuh are, you—»
The proprietor came from around the bar. «If the lady weeshes it off,» he declared, «off it stays.»
«What kinda discrimination is this?» roared the tourist. Several other people growled with him.
Diaz prepared to go help, in case things got rough. But his companion pulled up the sleeve of his mufti tunic. The ID bracelet gleamed into view. «First Lieutenant Carl H. Bailey, United States Astromilitary Corps, at your service,» he said; and a circular wave of quietness expanded around him. «Please forgive my action. I’ll gladly stand the house a round if—»
But that wasn’t necessary. The tourist fell all over himself apologizing and begged to buy the drinks. Someone else bought them next, and someone after him. Nobody ventured near the booth, where the spacemen obviously wanted privacy. But from time to time, when Diaz glanced out, he got many smiles and a few shy waves. It was almost embarrassing.
«I was afraid for a minute we’d have a fight,» he said.
«N-no,» Bailey answered. «I’ve watched our prestige develop exponentially, being Stateside while my leg healed. I doubt if there’s an American alive who’d lift a finger against a Corpsman these days. But I admit I was afraid of a scene. That wouldn’t’ve done the name of the Corps any good. As things worked out, though…»
«We came off too bloody well,» Diaz finished. «Now there’s not even any pseudolife in this place. Let’s haul mass. We can catch the transpolar shuttle to Paris if we hurry.»
But at that moment the proprietor’s friends and relations, who also remembered him, began to arrive. They must have been phoned the great news. Pablo was there, Manuel, Carmen with her castanets, Juan with his guitar, Tio Rico waving a bottle in each enormous fist; and they welcomed Diaz back with embraces, and soon there was song and dancing, and the fiesta ended in the rear courtyard watching the moon set before dawn, and everything was like the old days, for Señor Capitán Diaz’s sake. That had been a hell of a good furlough.
Another jet splashed fire across the Milky Way. Closer this time, and obviously reducing relative speed. Diaz croaked out a cheer. He had spent weary hours waiting. The hugeness and aloneness had eaten farther into his defenses than he wished to realize. He had begun to understand why some people were disturbed to see the stars on a clear mountain night. (Where wind went soughing through Jeffrey pines whose bark smelled like vanilla if you laid your head close, and a river flowed cold and loud over stones—oh, Christ, how beautiful Earth was!) He shoved such matters aside and reactivated his transmitter.
The streak winked out and the stars crowded back into his eyes. But that was all right, it meant the boat had decelerated as much as necessary, and soon a scooter would be homing on his beam, and water and food and sleep, and a new ship and eventually certain letters to write. That would be the worst part—but not for months or years yet, not till one side or the other conceded the present phase of the war. Diaz found himself wishing most for a cigarette.