Even then, even there, nearly everybody recognized Murra. While they waited for the shuttle to finish its cooling process, crackling and pinging alarmingly as it did, people took time to smile at her, and nod. She accepted their attention as graciously as always. It didn’t particularly please her; it simply would have puzzled her if it had been withheld. When at last the handlers pushed the rolling stairs to the hatch and it opened Murra did not join in the cheering. She was there, though. She was right there to see Blundy and Petoyne appear in the doorway with a couple of strangers, strutty little man and dark middle-aged woman; and she only had to see the woman once to see what she saw. As soon as they came down she was right at the foot of the stairs gracefully moving up between the woman and Blundy to kiss him. “I’m so glad to have you back, my very dearest,” she said, marking out her claim, “and I hope you’ve remembered to invite your friends to dine with us tomorrow night. Her too,” she said, gazing benignly at Petoyne.
Murra saw rather little of her husband that day, or at least not at close range. He was frequently on the news screen, of course: taking the visitors to see the governor, showing the visitors around the summer city, standing with the visitors as they were welcomed, and welcomed, and welcomed. No, actually she saw quite a lot of Blundy that day, and it pleased her that she saw him as she did because so did everyone else on Slowyear.
It was less pleasing, though, because it was never Blundy alone she saw on the screen but always Blundy plus that foolish little Petoyne, and Blundy with that rather unattractive starship woman who would, Murra was resignedly certain, be the next Petoyne in Blundy’s life…for a time.
By the time Blundy got home that night he was too tired to talk, or said he was. She had expected as much.
Anyway, as she certainly had expected, he slept that night where he belonged, next to her side. He didn’t talk in the morning, either, because as soon as he was awake he was out, muttering excuses, no time, so much to do; but that was all right, too, because the dinner was a fixture for that night.
In a whole marriage’s worth of arranging pleasing dinners for Blundy she was determined this would be the grandest and best. Everything would have to be perfect; so to begin with Murra called in the cleaners as soon as he was out of the house, and informed her cooker that he would be needed by noon at the latest to start preparing the meal. Then, content that that much was well in hand, she allowed herself to go shopping.
The shopping was for food, she told herself. But although there were plenty of food stores nearer than the central marketplace, that was where she went.
That was where everyone else went, too, because the second shuttle, this one the starship’s own, had landed at daybreak, and the people from the ship were already setting up their displays.
Of course, there weren’t any actual goods there; those were already in the sheds by the landing strip.
What the ship people had were a dozen or so video displays to show the catalogue of their wares. One screen was showing a succession of industrial-looking machines, another household appliances, a third plants of many kinds, from tiny baby’s breath blossoms to giant redwoods, a fourth animals. It was hard to see individuals in the press around the displays, but a short, sallow man stranger at one of the booths came forward to greet her. “Mrs., ah, Blundy, isn’t it?” he asked, and she recognized the man she had invited to dinner.
“Actually my name is Murra. I’m afraid I didn’t catch yours?”
“Hans Horeger,” the man said promptly, holding out his hand. “I’m executive officer and deputy captain acting captain, really,” he said, with a deprecating shrug, “because old Hawkins is really pretty much past it.”
“I’m honored,” Murra said gravely. “And please do be sure to come tonight, and bring your charming friend “
“You mean Mercy MacDonald, I suppose,” Horeger said. Murra was aware of his eyes on her, missing nothing. His study of her was discreet, which she appreciated, but also quite admiring, which she appreciated even more. “Would you call her charming? I guess so, in her way but of course next to someone like you “
She gave him her prettiest smile. “I don’t see her here,” she remarked, looking around.
The man looked around too. “No, I guess she’s not back yet. She and your husband had to go to the sheds to look at some samples.”
She nodded. “Yes,” she said, “I rather thought they would.”
Blundy and herself, the two from the starship, Petoyne there had to be one more, a male, to make an even number. Since the extra male would be more or less Petoyne’s escort, he needn’t be particularly attractive. Murra thought for a moment, then smiled and picked up the phone. It was answered at once.
“Vorian? I know how much you wanted to meet the people from the starship. Well, if you’re free for dinner this evening “
Of course he was. That settled, Murra gave orders and watched until she was sure the cleaner and the cooker were well started on them. Normally Murra didn’t care for hired servants. But they were absolutely necessary this night, for there would be no spending time in the kitchen for the hostess. When she was convinced they were properly doing the gruntwork they were hired for, Muna began doing the things she alone could do. She arranged the flowers she had bought prettily around the room. Then music: She selected tapes of unobtrusive strings and flutes to play in the background. Then she programmed the big wall screen with suitable background images, mostly a series of still shots from Winter Wife and other productions she and Blundy had done together, with, of course the most flattering shots of herself featured. She worked as hard as the hired help, because it all had to be perfect….
It was perfect, too. She was sure of that before the first guest arrived. Yet when Mercy MacDonald showed up Murra had a quick moment of doubt. The woman had managed to get herself rested and cleaned up, and she did not look quite so middle-aged anymore. Indeed, Murra thought justly, she looked no older than herself. She greeted the woman with a hands-on-the-shoulder almost hug, and gave the air by her ear an almost kiss. “We’re so grateful you took the time to come, my dear,” she said, sweetly and intimately, as though they had been long-lost sisters, tragically separated somehow but still, somehow, bonded for life. “Oh, what’s this? You shouldn’t have.”
For the woman was handing her something soft wrapped in an even softer fabric. Was it bugsilk? No, Murra realized, it had to be real silk! From old Earth!
It was a pity that it was patterned with those quite hideous flowers, but still. One day, Murra thought but not a very near day, not until the woman who had given it to her was no longer around that wrapping could become a pretty scarf, or something attractively unusual to throw over the back of a chair.
When she unwrapped it and saw what the wrapping contained she said warmly, “Why, it’s really beautiful, “trying not to laugh, but all the same making sure Blundy saw with what effort she was politely not laughing. The gift inside was imagine! a stiff piece of some coarse fabric sewn with wool lettering.
Greetings from space, it said, in strident green, blue, and purple.
“It’s a sampler. People on Earth used to make them to hang up in their living rooms,” Mercy MacDonald explained. “I didn’t know if you’d like it we call this sort of thing scrimshaw. People on other planets like to have these things, for souvenirs of our visit.”
“It’s stunning,” Murra said, knowing that Blundy would understand she thought it hideous; and just because she thought it so hideous she insisted that Blundy put it up at once on the wall over the couch in the living room.