Mouse had become chess champion of Service Ship Three. The Seiners had been excited about it. They were fond of the game and eager for new challenges.
"Why me? I'm no good."
"Better than you think. Anyway, we like everybody to find their place in the pecking order." Her hardness faded as quickly as it had come.
"I wanted to go over to Twenty-three West. If I could get permission." He pulled the excuse off the wall, for the salving of his ego. He did not like losing all the time, even at games. "I heard there's a guy over there with some early English coins. Victorians."
She looked puzzled.
Mouse laughed. "Didn't you know? We're both mad collectors. Coins and stamps mostly, because they're easy to lug around."
Frowning over them, Amy reminded benRabi of Alyce. So many of their facial expressions were similar. "It looks like you're mad everything. Chess. Archaicism. Collections. Football and women."
"That's him, not me," benRabi said.
"What about people?" Amy asked.
"Aren't women people?" Mouse countered.
She shook her head. She was a Starfisher, and Starfishers could not understand. Even Archaicism was just a hobby for them. Landsmen plunged themselves into things because they did not want to get involved with people. People hurt. The growing closeness between Mouse and benRabi, and the apparent friendships that had taken shape among the other foreigners, had confused Amy. She did not recognize their lack of temporal depth.
A critical difference between Confederation and Starfisher relationships was that of durational expectancy. The idea of a close relationship that could be severed quickly, painlessly, as easily as it had been formed, would not occur to a Starfisher. But they lived in a closed, static culture where a severely limited number of people passed through their lives. Friendships were expected to last a lifetime.
BenRabi was leery of the morrow. The isolation of the landsmen, far out in a remote residential cube, had minimized cultural friction during the week. But Kindervoort, for whom the outsiders had become a pet project, planned to make recreation day a gigantic college smoker, with floods of Seiners being exposed to landside ways.
Still trying to gentle everyone in, Moyshe supposed. Kindervoort was a rather thoughtful, admirable cop. He might get to like the man yet.
Ten: 3047 AD
The Olden Days, A Victory Celebration
"Max! You're beautiful."
"Don't sound so damned astonished, Walter."
"Oh. I didn't mean... I just never saw you dressed up before."
"Quit while you're ahead, friend. By the way. I notice you've changed a little too, Commander." She stared pointedly at the double sunbursts on his high collar. "I thought you said you were a dip."
"Naval Attaché. You know that."
"No, I didn't. Naval Attaché. Isn't that the same thing as head spy? Bureau of Naval Intelligence?"
Perchevski reddened. "Not always. Some of us... "
"Don't mind me, Walter." She smiled. "I'm just thinking out loud. That would explain some of the mysteries about you."
"Mysteries? About me? Come on, Max. I'm as mysterious as a pumpkin. Here we are."
A Marine accepted his ID badge, poked it into a slot. He eyed a readout screen somewhere out of sight. "Thank you, sir. Is this Miss Travers, sir?"
"Yes."
He consulted the screen again. "Thank you, sir. Have a nice evening, sir. Ma'am." A door slid open.
"Ma'am?" Max asked. "Do I look that old?"
"Come on, Max."
"Isn't he going to check me?"
"He did. You're all right. You don't have a bomb in your purse."
"Thanks a lot. What do they do to you in Academy? Why can't officers be polite like that nice young Marine?"
"You were just complaining... Max, you're sure contrary tonight. What's the matter?" He handed his over-tunic to the Marine corporal in the cloak room, helped Max with her cape.
"I'm scared, Walter. I've never even been near the Command Club. I don't know how to talk to Senators and Admirals."
"Know something, Max?"
"What?"
"I've never been here before either. We'll lose our virginity together. I'll tell you this, though. Admirals and Senators put their pants on one leg at a time, same as us, and they'll paw your leg under the table the same way I do."
"Male or female?" She seized his arm as they entered the huge Grand Ballroom. Her grip tightened.
"Both, the way you look tonight." He slowed. The place had no walls. An all-round animated hologram concealed the room's boundaries. Portrayals of Navy's mightiest ships of war lay every direction but downward. Perchevski automatically scanned the starfields. He saw no constellations he recognized.
Max's grip became painful. "I feel like I'm falling, Walter."
Local gravity had been allowed to decline to lunar normal to reinforce the deep-space effect.
"Somebody's really putting on the dog," Perchevski grumbled.
"Commander. Madam," said another polite Marine, "may I show you to your seats?"
The place was thronged. "Of course. How many people going to be here tonight, First Lance?" He was getting jittery. He still did not know why he was one of the elect.
"Nearly two thousand, sir. Here, sir." The Marine pulled a chair for Max.
"But... " He had scanned the faces of his tablemates. His jaw refused to continue working.
A few of them he knew personally. The Chief of Staff Navy and the Director of Naval Intelligence he recognized from the holonetnews.
Max recognized them too. She leaned and whispered, "Who the hell are you really, Walter?" She was so awed she could not look at the high brass.
Perchevski stared at his place setting, just as awed. "I'm starting to wonder myself."
"Thomas?"
Only one man alive insisted on calling him by that name. Perchevski forced his gaze to rise and meet that of his boss. "Sir?" He flicked a sideways glance at Mouse, who was eyeing Max appreciatively while whispering to his own ladyfriend.
"How are you doing, Max?" Mouse asked.
"You too, Yamamoto?"
"Thomas, the CSN and DNI want to be introduced."
"Yes sir." He evaded Admiral Beckhart's eyes by fixing his gaze on the one seat still vacant. He moved around to shake hands with the brass while Beckhart murmured the introductions.
"This is the man," Beckhart said. "He made it all go."
"Congratulations, Commander," the CSN told Perchevski. "And thank you. I understand you'll receive the Swords and Diamonds. Not to mention the prize."
Perchevski could not conceal his bewilderment.
They've got to be talking about the operation, he thought. Swords and Diamonds to the Lunar Cross, right? More chest hardware. With another medal and fifty pfenning he could buy a cheap cup of soy-coffee. Or pay half a Conmark without.
"Thank you, sir. I'd rather have my vacation, sir."
His boldness startled him even more than did his bitterness.
The DNI peered at Beckhart. "Up to your tricks with the troops, Admiral?"
"Ma'am?"
Perchevski grinned. The mission was worth it after all, just to get here and see that look on Beckhart's face.
"This man obviously doesn't have the faintest damn notion of what he's doing here."
Perchevski threw oil on the flames by nodding behind his boss's back.
He entered his commander's presence only rarely, which was just as well. The Admiral brought out the contrariness in him.
"It'll be clear soon enough," Beckhart said. "I just thought it would be a nice surprise. Go back to your friend, Thomas. I see she knows Mouse."