A fleet admiral laughed huskily. “You mean you were still circling him, still firing, or trying to, with an empty gun?”
Don laughed too, as though embarrassed. “Yes, sir, I guess so. I suppose I wasn’t coordinating very well by that time.”
“Damnedest action in military history,” the commodore blurted. “It’s as though a liberty launch, armed with a machine gun, had attacked and sunk the Forrestal”
Don looked at him questioningly.
“Before your time,” the commodore said. “The Forrestal was the largest aircraft carrier of its day back when we had surface navies.”
They landed at the Octagon airport in Bost-Wash, said their goodbyes in great fellowship, and went their various ways.
Don Mathers considered only passingly going into Bost-Wash proper and continuing his celebration but then decided the hell with it. The prolonged binge was beginning to catch up with him. Instead, he took a commercial carrier to Center City, getting the usual attention. The stewardesses hovered over him, both the captain and copilot came back to shake hands, and at least a good round dozen of his fellow passengers got his autograph. He was getting used to it. He put down only a few drinks on the short trip, trying to taper off. Besides, the liquor was the standard guzzle of the day and he was already used to better things.
At the airport in Center City, he escaped the mob that gathered, got into an automated hovercab and dialed the hi-rise apartment house that contained his digs.
Once in his own mini-apartment, he looked about in contemptuous amusement. He had been gone about two weeks, but somehow it was as though it had been years. It seemed impossible that the place was this small and this sterile. He had always hated it. The thing was that before there had been no alternative, no point in a negative attitude.
He put down the small bag he had brought with him from Paris. He hadn’t bothered to pack any of the endless clothing they had supplied him with, nor any of the guzzle, save one imperial quart of the Scotch the President of the Solar System League had sent over.
It was hardly evening but he had the prolonged dissipation accumulated in him and touched the button that brought the bed from the wall, then ripped the civilian clothes he was wearing off and tossed them to a chair. He didn’t awaken until morning.
He took his time showering and shaving, then went back into his living room, returned the bed to the wall and went over to his order box. He dialed himself a space colonel’s dress uniform and for once was able to utilize his Universal Credit Card. Off hand, he couldn’t remember having used it since he’d received his medal. Not even in that cathouse in Paris. Almighty Ultimate that had been an experience. That platinum blonde hadn’t been kidding when she said they knew tricks.
Dressed, he looked about the apartment and grunted contempt. It was the last night that he’d ever spend in this miniature dump.
He left the apartment and went down to the service elevators and took one to the motor pool in the basements. He wanted to avoid meeting any other residents in the building. He was beginning to get autograph signer’s cramp in his right hand.
He summoned an auto cab and was able to get into it quickly enough to avoid more than two handshakes and one autograph. He dialed the Interplanetary Lines Building.
By the time he had covered the distance between the curb and the huge building’s entry, a small crowd had gathered and were applauding him. He grinned and waved at them, but darted inside before anyone could come up with paper and stylo.
The lobby was packed with bustling citizens to the point where nobody recognized him, which was all right with Don Mathers. He made his way over to the series of reception desks. Most of them were automated, but two boasted live girls.
The one he stopped before knew him immediately and she ogled him in surprise.
She was a cute little thing, very trim in her Interplanetary Lines uniform, which, stiff and proper though it was, failed to disguise her ripeness. She was very brunette, her black hair and brows reminding him of Dian Keramikou, her red mouth that of the German girl in Geneva, the one who was willing to put out on her honeymoon. What was her name? He couldn’t remember.
He said, “I’d like to see either or both Lawrence Demming or Maximilian Rostoff.”
She stood immediately. “I’ll personally escort you, Colonel Mathers.”
They headed for an elevator set off to one side of the public elevator banks and obviously private.
When they entered it, he grinned at her and said, “What are you doing tonight, Miss?”
Her face went pale. “Oh, anything, sir.”
He grinned again. “Maybe I’ll take you up on that if I’m not too busy.”
He had never seen anyone so taken aback. She said, all flustered, “I’m Toni… Toni Fitzgerald. You can just call this building and ask for me. Any time. Any time at all.”
“When are you off?”
“That doesn’t make any difference, Colonel Mathers.”
“Don,” he said. “I wouldn’t want to get you fired.”
“I… I mean, my supervisor wouldn’t dream of firing me, or anything else, if I was with you… Don.”
“Well, maybe we’ll get together,” he smiled. “But meanwhile, let’s see Old Man Demming.”
That took her back too. She said weakly, “Mr. Demming has been out in SanSan. I don’t know if he has returned as yet. But Mr. Rostoff is in his office.”
SanSan, the West Coast equivalent of Bost-Wash. The city currently extended from what was once San Francisco to what was once San Diego and was still expanding, north, south and east. Only the Pacific prevented it from edging west as well.
The elevator whooshed them to rarefied altitudes and they left it to emerge into a labyrinth of extensive offices, most overrunning with computers and chattering business machines, none of which Don recognized.
“This way, Colonel Mathers,” she said. “Mr. Rostoff has recently established offices in the Interplanetary Lines Building. Three floors.”
He followed her, hard put to keep his eyes from her trim buttocks which managed to sway ever so slightly, despite the stiff uniform.
She said, “I’ve applied six times for Space Service, but they won’t take me. My two brothers were lost in that collision between the Minerva and Sioux City off Pluto last year.”
Don, who was to her right and very slightly behind her said, “That’s too bad, Toni. However, the Space Service isn’t as romantic as you might think. And the name’s Don.”
“Yes, sir,” Toni Fitzgerald said, her soul in her eyes. “You ought to know… Don. Nobody will ever believe me when I tell them you told me to call you by your first name.”
Don Mathers was somehow irritated, though he didn’t know why. He said nothing further until they had reached their destination in the gigantic office building. He thanked her after she had turned him over to another receptionist.
However, his spirits had been restored by the time he was brought to the door of Max Rostoff’s private office. His new guide, as impressed as had been Toni, hadn’t even bothered to check on the interplanetary magnate’s availability before ushering Mathers into the other’s presence.