"What's this thing?" he asked, twirling a sort of mobile that stood by the window. It seemed to represent the planets.
"What? Oh, that's a funny thing, Tib. It's an orrery, and it came for me yesterday. I think it's from Meredith Bradison's grandson—anyway, he broke one in Puerto Rico, and I can't think who else would do it. There wasn't any name."
"I wouldn't have thought he had the price of something like this," Tib commented, pushing Jupiter around and watching the other planets spin to keep up.
"Me, too—it's all hand-made. Listen, I'm being a lousy hostess, I know, but this Eshleman thing—"
"That's all right." He was not unhappy that she was concentrating on something other than himself, but he was restless. His wanderings took him into the kitchen. The doors of the cupboard over the sink were ajar; he pulled them a little more so and found what he had expected, ajar of instant coffee. He made the decision that it was less impolite to go ahead and make it than to interrupt her to ask if he might. While the water was boiling he realized what it was that pleased him so about Rainy's apartment. It smelled feminine. It was a scent that Wendy's visit had reminded him to miss.
He brought the coffee to where Rainy was sitting over her desk, cheek on the hand that was supported by the desk, scratching absent-mindedly behind her ear and scribbling slowly.
"Coffee? Hey, what a good idea." she said, coming back to the planet she was on. "This isn't working anyway. The damn satellite has a tangential velocity of about six miles a second, and according to Eshleman the spot of focus is only tens of meters across. So I have to know the exact time when it began to screw-up—not when we received the signals in Arecibo, but when it happened, out there past Saturn—before I can locate the position of the probe precisely enough to take the reciprocal coordinates and identify the star—if there really was a star—if I had a good enough star catalogue, which I don't have here anyway. I thought I could do it on my calculator, but it only goes to eight places—eleven if you coax it, but then I always forget what the first few significant figures were—"
"I'm not understanding a hell of a lot of this," Tib objected mildly.
She grinned, took off her glasses, put down her pencil and turned to face him. "You understand that I'm stuck, right? That's what it comes to. Tomorrow I'll go up to JPL and let the big machines work it all out. And then—wow! Wait'll I tell the Feds!"
Tib leaned toward her, putting his hand on her shoulder. "Why?" he asked.
"Why what?"
"Why should you wait? These agents work around the clock to defend our freedom and complete their paperwork. Why don't you call them and tell them the good news now?"
She looked perplexed for a moment, then sunny. "You have real good ideas sometimes, you know that?" She jumped up, put her glasses back on, and began to rummage through the drawer in the telephone table. Feeling pleased with himself, Tib stood up and stretched. He had been so taken up with the tensions of, what did they call it? dating?, that he had not really looked at her apartment. It was obviously new to her; the furniture all new, the floors skimpily covered with throw rugs, also new. She had impressed her own personality only in patches. Over the couch was a huge, framed monochrome of herself. The slit- bamboo roller curtains were an obvious temporary expedient before investing in drapes, but she had tacked up a variety of badges and buttons on one of them. Keepsakes and souvenirs: he recognized her I.D. badge from the Arecibo meeting, along with one from the ASF, in among political badges and jokes: "We're All from an Unratified Country— ERA" next to "If You Can Read This You're Too Close".
She found what she was looking for and punched out a number. "This is Georgia Raines Keating," she said into the phone, "calling Burnett Harscore. I'm sorry it's so late, but I've just received some important information."
She was evidently enjoying herself. She held her glasses in her hand, gesturing with them to make her points, and her face was far more relaxed and, yes, sexually attractive than he had seen it for some time. "He's not there? Then write down this message. Have you got a pencil? —Oh, silly me, of course, you're taping the whole thing. Well, I believe I have an explanation for the event he has been discussing with me. I'll give you the literature citations; he can look them up and then, if he needs further information, he can call me." She rattled off the Einstein and Eshleman citations from Science, and finished, "Of course, I am not sure that the phenomenon described is what actually happened, just that it's a lot more likely than either that I screwed it up or the Russians did. What? Yes, you're welcome. And Merry Christmas."
She hung up and turned, grinning, to Tib. "I didn't even promise to keep it quiet. Maybe I can get a paper out of it!"
She looked so pleased that he put his arms around her and kissed her to celebrate. She kissed him back and then freed herself. "Hey, Tib? I don't want to go to bed with you. "
He stroked her hair. "Yes, many women have that attitude," he agreed.
"No, really. I don't mean I don't like you. Listen, I don't want you going bananas like in Arecibo—"
Tib bristled. "I did not go 'bananas'."
"Yes, you did, so let's leave it there, all right? Anyway, it isn't you, honestly, Tib. You're a pretty attractive man, not counting going bananas every now and then. It's Tinker."
"Tinker?"
"My ex-husband," she explained.
He said seriously, "No good person has ever been named Tinker."
Rainy laughed and reached for the coffee cups. "Would you like some more? Come on in the kitchen." As she was heating the water she added reflectively, "It's actually worse than just Tinker'. It's from when he was a baby. His mother used to call him 'Little Stinker', and when he got bigger they just cleaned it up a little. But he's really a good person, Tib."
"Yes?"
Her expression was getting stubborn. "I made him this promise," she said, paused, and then shrugged. "He's sort of a sad person sometimes. Very jealous. I don't want to hurt him. So I, uh, I promised him I wouldn't get involved with anybody else here in L.A. Conventions and trips and so on, that's something else, I didn't make any promise about that."
Tib threw his head back and laughed. "That's, excuse me, the stupidest thing I ever heard of. "
"Stick it up your nose!" she .flared.
"No, let me understand," he persisted. "I had my opportunity in Arecibo, then, and missed it?"
"You had no chance in Arecibo, buster!"
"I mean in a theoretical sense. I am simply trying to understand the rules. That would have been okay, correct? Or also at the ASF, because that was a convention?"
"Now, look! Don't push too hard on this. We didn't sign a treaty, it was simply a kindness for someone I don't want to hurt. "
"Yes, of course, but you have interested me in this. I believe I understand the terms of reference now." He thought for a moment, then nodded. "Excuse me," he said, turning back into the living room. She followed him to the archway, staring as he considered the array of badges on the bamboo blind. "Tib?"
He nodded and selected two. "Yes, these will do," he said. "Here, one badge for you, one for me. The name is wrong on mine, but I will change that." He took a pen from his pocket and crossed her name out, substituting his own. "Fine. Now we are at a convention, all right? We have had a scientific session about your spacecraft, you have delivered your report, and now we are at a room party."