“It doesn’t matter,” I said. “Just make sure the switch is off next time, please.”
“All right,” he said.
When we got back to the ship, I went into the toilet and turned on the hot air blower in the refresher. In a few minutes I was dry.
Then I discovered that inspite of my various stomach upsets, I was hungry. I ate heartily and felt much better. There’s nothing like the feeling of being comfortably full.
It was near nightfall outside when Daddy came back, though it was still in the middle of the afternoon by Ship time. When it started to grow dark outside, the people who’d been coming to stare all day had gone, I suppose home to dinner. When Daddy came back, there was no band playing this time.
I heard the horses and I went outside. One of the crew went by me and down the ramp. Mr. Tubman and Daddy handed their horses over to him and then turned their attention back to Mr. Gennaro, who was standing by his own horse. They didn’t see me standing near the top of the ramp.
In a very anxious voice, Mr. Gennaro said, “Now are you sure that this unfortunate business isn’t going to make any difference to our agreement?”
“I’m quite sure,” Daddy said, smiling. “You made your apology and I’m quite sure my daughter got whatever satisfaction she needed from pushing your boy into the water. Now let’s drop the whole matter. Our ship will be down for the ore you have ready next week…”
I didn’t wait to hear him finish. I just turned and went inside with a little glow warming me. He wasn’t mad at me.
“What are you smirking about?” George asked.
“Oh, nothing,” I said.
PART II: INSIDE MY WORLD
7
We took off shortly after Daddy came aboard. He and I and Mr. Tubman were sitting in the center of the downstairs lounge in easy chairs. The three crewmen were playing cards, and George Fuhonin was upstairs piloting.
I felt quietly pleased with myself. Viewed from one angle, my time on Grainau had been nothing but one long mistake. I wasn’t bothering to view it that way, even though I did realize dimly that I had made a few errors in tact and simple good sense. It wasn’t important to me, and even now I would say that it was comparatively unimportant in real terms.
I think I was deservedly elated. I was filled to the brim with the discovery that I could meet Mudeaters on their own home grounds, and if not come off best, at least draw.
Like the girl who first found out how to make fire, like the girl who invented the principle of the lever, like the girl who first had the courage to eat moldy goat cheese and found Roquefort, I had discovered something absolutely new in the world. Self-confidence, perhaps.
My errors had been made. My self-confidence was still in the process of becoming. If Daddy had pointed out the errors, they would not have been mended, and the self-confidence might have been stillborn. But Daddy just smoked and smiled.
I was curious enough about the things that Ralph Gennaro had said that I repeated his comments to Daddy and asked about them.
“Don’t worry about it,” Daddy said.
“There’s not much sense in even listening to a Mudeater,” Mr. Tubman said. “They have no perspective. They live in such limited little worlds that they can’t see what’s going on.”
“I wish you wouldn’t use that word, Henry,” Daddy said. “It’s just as thoughtless as that silly word that Mia picked up. What did that boy say?”
“‘Grabbie?’”
“Mm, yes. That one. There’s no reason to trade insults. We have our way of life and they have theirs. I wouldn’t live as they do, but disrespect seems pointless. I’m sure there are good people among them.”
“It’s their lack of perspective,” Mr. Tubman said. “I’ll bet Gennaro is complaining right now that you cheated him.”
“He might be,” Daddy said.
“You didn’t cheat him, did you, Daddy? He seemed happy that you were willing to make a deal.”
“When did you hear this?”
“When you rode up.”
“Lack of perspective,” Mr. Tubman said. “He doesn’t bargain well and he was afraid that your dad had been offended by your adventure. He gave in more easily than he had to. He was happy at the time, but he’s probably regretting it now.”
Daddy nodded and filled his pipe again. “I don’t see any reason to mind his interests for him. As far as I’m concerned, the less we do for the colonists, the sooner they’ll learn to watch out for themselves. And all the better for them when they do. That’s where Mr. Mbele and I disagree. He believes in exceptions to rules, in treating the colonists better than we treat ourselves. I’m not ready to accept that.”
Mr. Tubman said, “I’ll have to admit that I’ve learned things about bargaining from watching you, Miles.”
“I hope so. You will be a poor trader if you underestimate the people you deal with. And you, Mia, will be making a mistake if you underestimate a man like Mr. Mbele. His principles are excellent — sometimes, however, he only sees one route to a goal.”
After a few minutes, Mr. Tubman went over to make a fourth in the card game. I decided to go upstairs.
Daddy looked up as I left. He took the pipe from his mouth. It had gone out without his noticing. “Going to hear another story?” he asked.
“I don’t know,” I said. “Maybe.” And I went up and spent the rest of the trip with George.
So, I went home to Geo Quad. In my own time, I thought about things and discovered at least some of my errors, and the discovery did not hurt me, as it might have.
Sometimes there is art of a subtle sort in not touching, in simply sitting and smoking and talking of other people. When I got back to the Ship, I was still feeling good. And it lasted until I went to sleep.
I sat in a large comfortable chair — uncomfortably — and waited for Jimmy Dentremont. I wasn’t twitching; I merely had a definite feeling of unease. This was the living room of the Geo Quad dorm, and very similar to the one that I had once lived in. The similarity didn’t bother me much, but I was a stranger here and a little hesitant because of it. If it hasn’t become clear previously, perhaps I should say that I always prefer to feel in command of a situation.
The room was nicely-enough appointed, but very impersonal. Individuality in a room comes from personal touches, personal care, personal interest, and the more public a room is, the less individual it is bound to be. My own room at home was more personal and individual than our living room, our living room better than the sleeping quarters of this dorm — though I hadn’t seen them, I remembered well enough what dorm sleeping quarters were like — and the quarters better than this room I was sitting in. To be a stranger in an impersonal room in which there are other people who are not strangers to one another or to the place is to have the feeling of strangeness compounded.
The dorm had a living room, where I was sitting, a kitchen and study rooms out of sight, and living quarters upstairs. When I came in I looked around, and then stopped one of the small kids who obviously belonged here, a little girl of about eight.
“Is Jimmy Dentremont around?”
“Upstairs, I imagine,” she said.
Near the door there was a buzzer board for the use of people like me who didn’t live here. I looked Jimmy’s name up, then rang two longs and a short. Since it was not far out of his way, Jimmy usually stopped by for me on the way to Mr. Mbele’s, rather than me coming after him, but I had something to talk with him about today.