"I wanted to. I'm coming with you." She squeezed his hand.
"Sonofabitch," he said softly. His mood skyrocketed.
He had been firing on her for years. She had teased and led him on with smiles and gentle touches and had never given in. The occasional friendly date was as close as he had ever come.
Max made it a rewarding evening after all.
Eleven: 3048 AD
Operation Dragon, Danion
BenRabi groaned when he cracked an eye and saw the time. Noon already. He had wasted half his recreation day.
He flung himself out of bed and into the shower. Minutes later he was shuffling his Jerusalem papers, trying to find where he had left off.
The door buzzer whined. "Damn! I just got started. It's open."
The door slid aside. Jarl Kindervoort, Amy, and a half dozen unfamiliar Seiners grinned at him. They wore gaily colored period costumes. Moyshe laughed. "You look like refugees from a blood-and-blades epic." Except for one little fellow way in the back, grimy-gruesome in Billy the Kid regalia. "What the hell? Is King Arthur aboard?"
"It's recreation day, Moyshe," Amy said, using that smile that melted him. "We decided to drag the old grizzly out of his den."
How could he stay angry in the face of that smile? It was so damned disarming and warm. "I was going to work on the story." She had been impressed by his being a published author. "Anyway, I haven't got anything to wear." He realized they were offering him something. He grew wary.
"Eh?" Kindervoort asked, cupping his ear. "What's that? No matter, Moyshe. No time for it. Come on. We're late for the party now."
Amy chanted, "We're late, we're late, for a very important date... "
Kindervoort caught Moyshe's arm, pulled him through the doorway. He ignored benRabi's protests as he led him along a passageway crowded with young Seiners in wild costumes, zigging and zagging through to the common room serving as the landsmen's cafeteria, gymnasium, rec room, and lounge. It was a big place, but today Moyshe felt the walls pressing in. He had never seen it so crowded.
Most of the landsmen were there, lost among five times as many curious Seiners. The mixer had been going awhile. It had gotten organized. Not far from the door, at a long table where a dozen chess games were in progress, benRabi spied Mouse and the harem he had recruited.
"Where does he find the time?" he murmured.
Kindervoort and Amy herded him toward the table.
"Hey," Mouse said. "You dug him out. You have to use explosives?"
"He gave up without a fight," Kindervoort replied, laughter edging his voice. "Who should he play first?"
"Now wait a minute... "
"Get serious, Moyshe," Mouse snapped. "You're going to go Roman candle freaker if you stay locked up. Come on out and say in to the world. Go on down there and beat the guy at the end of the table."
There was a tightness around the corners of Mouse's eyes. And an edge to his voice. Moyshe recognized a command. He moved down the table.
He did not like being pushed, but Mouse had a point. The mission was not dead. He would not get his job done sitting in his cabin.
He took the empty seat opposite the youth at the foot of the table, smiling wanly. His opponent had black. Moyshe opened with king's pawn. Four moves. "Checkmate." He could not believe it. Nobody fell for a fool's mate.
"Good, Moyshe," Amy said over his shoulder. "Tommy, wake up. Moyshe isn't a subtle player. He's more your kamikaze type."
BenRabi turned. "Really?" She was leaning on the back of his chair. Skullface Kindervoort and his troops had vanished.
"From the games I've seen you play."
Tommy's mouth finally closed. The swiftness of his defeat had shattered him.
"Let's say that's just for practice," Moyshe said. Tommy smiled weakly.
"Too generous of you," he murmured. "I deserved what I got."
BenRabi beat him again, easily, but took longer. Then he moved up the table, playing Seiner after Seiner, quickly, and one landsman whom he had beaten before. The Starfishers, while enthusiastic, were even less subtle than he. They played the game like checkers, going for a massacre. He won every match he played.
"Break time, Amy," he said. "I'm getting calluses on my butt."
"That was kind, what you did for Tommy," she said as she guided him toward the refreshments line.
"What's that?"
"Giving him a second chance. Playing badly on purpose."
"I did that?" He was glad they had dragged him in. The noise, the excitement of new people... It was infectious.
"You did. I know something about the game. Tommy's eager, but a little short. You know." She tapped her temple. "He's my second cousin. I feel sorry for him. Someday he'll realize that he won't ever beat anybody. It'll really hit him. The only thing he can really do better than anybody is handle the animals."
"Animals?" benRabi demanded incredulously.
"Sure. The zoo animals. In Twelve South, over by Sail Control. We've got the space for it. That's one thing we don't lack. We've got botanical gardens and feral forests and football stadiums and all kinds of space wasters. Our ships are built to be lived in."
"You remind me of somebody," he mumbled, remembering Alyce. Alyce had had that same elfin nose, those same high cheekbones, that same slim, small-breasted body.
"What?"
"Nothing." He tried to cover up by downing half a cup of steaming coffee. It scalded him. He sprayed the man in front of him. He mumbled apologies, felt small, and rubbed his lips and tongue.
Amy guided him away before he humiliated himself.
Swinging a hand to indicate the crowd, he said, "Reminds me of an Archaicist convention. For which read madhouse. Does this go on every week?"
"Except last week, when they were getting ready for you to come aboard. You should see it during sports season."
"How do they find people to play those games? From what Mouse told me... "
"People isn't the problem. Every residential cube has teams. They can pick and choose their players. It's a big thing, being a sports hero. Specially if you make one of the All-Star teams that play against the other harvestships. We've got every game you can imagine. You ever try nul-grav handball?"
"I've played. Maybe not by the same rules... Mouse and I play sometimes."
"Who wins?"
"He does. Most of the time. I don't have the killer instinct. I just play for fun."
"He's always dead serious, isn't he? Completely determined. And yet he seems to enjoy life more than you."
He scowled. "What is this?"
"Sorry. Where was I? Oh. There's even an Olympics. And intership games whenever we're in The Yards, and Fleet games while we're harvesting."
"The yards?"
"Enough said. That's secret stuff."
He did not press. But the agent in him red-tagged her words.
Amy led him to a cluster of tables under a banner proclaiming: COLLECTOR'S CORNER. It was quieter there. The people were older and less flashily dressed. Moyshe spied coins and stamps and other odds and ends of milemarks from Old Earth's past. Coin and stamp collections had been popular, lightweight links with the motherworld during early space days, when mass and volume had been critically important.
"Not a nibble," he overheard one man complain to another. The listener nodded tautly, as though he were hearing it for the nth time. "Told you it would be a waste of time, Charley. They're all hedonists." The speaker glared at a raucous group of Archaicists. "We won't see one thing new before next auction."
His table caught benRabi's eye and interest. The man had laid out a display of British coins and stamps. "Excuse me, sir."