"Wouldn't you know Walteron would be on the prowl and in the right place?" Cordane was disgusted. "He's the, only one ever wears such a confining rig, isn't he, Deagan?"
"But what's he doing here?" Fenn asked. Then, without giving Deagan a chance to answer, Fenn went on. "I heard he had trouble at his mines: cave-ins and a massive displacement."
"He came in to apply to Father," said Deagan, son of the planetary manager, "for permission to import a soil-mechanics expert from Aldebaran."
"And nabs the only interesting female here? Usually he takes to the Streets as soon as he's done his duty dance with your mother."
"He's always had good timing," Deagan said, sounding amused.
"And bad intentions." Cordane glowered. "If he tries to Street her…"
This was Touch-Down Time, when the citizens of the bustling, prosperous planet of Fomalhaut V - rich in the transuranics, the actinides, so vital as the energy fuels needed to extend the surge of colonization to every habitable planet in the spiral of the Milky Way - relaxed industry and inhibitions in a three-day spectacular of day-long contests, night-long dancing, and eating and carousing.
The Official Residence, a sprawling complex of domes, residential, diplomatic, and business, was the traditional site of the special festivities to which the descendants of the original First Landing Families congregated from their distant domains. The more important off-world visitors and city and spaceport officials were added to this exclusive gathering. Conducted as it was along rather sedate lines, the festival held little glamour for those wanting to sample exotic and erotic pleasures available in the Streets' celebrations. Occasionally a brash young male newcomer, hoping to impress a Domain Family daughter favorably, took advantage of the Celebration's license and appeared at the Residence. As long as the person behaved with propriety acceptable to the Residence, he was permitted to stay. A few nights' dancing was hardly sufficient time in which to form a lasting alliance with the shrewdly raised young women of Fomalhaut. Even so, it was rare indeed for a young woman to put herself in such an equivocal position.
"Could she be from one of the newer Domains? They work so hard there, they don't usually attend Touch-Down," said Fenn.
"Newcomer?" Cordane suggested, turning to Deagan, who was studying the girl as she and her partner moved past them.
Deagan was the highly trained security manager for all imports, exports, and applicants seeking short or permanent residence. "I could check again, but she doesn't match my recollections of any of the three female IDs we processed last week."
"She couldn't be a newcomer," said Cordane, now flatly contradicting himself. "How would she know there's only a minimal guard at the Residence tonight? And that she could scale the garden wall because it's no longer powered?"
"She's no Streetie, or Walteron would have tried to ooze her off the floor by now," said Deagan. "I wonder how she's operating that haze she wears in place of a gown. Fascinating use of refracted light for those random opaques and transparencies." He jiggled his hand as if the movement would generate the answer. "Must be a net, but where does she get so much power?"
"We're not going to let old Walteron get her, are we? Lovely creature like that," Cordane asked in a tone that made his friends regard him with some amusement.
"If Deagan's right and she's in a circuit-protected dress, what could Walteron do?" asked Fenn.
"Short the circuits in a dark comer," Deagan replied. "If he can. I'd like a dance with her if only to see how the haze is engineered." '
The other two glared at him whereupon Deagan chuckled and gestured toward other parts of the vast room where the majority did seem to be staring at Walteron and his shimmering partner.
"You've got to admit it's a bloody clever costume. Pure hatred gleams from half the female eyes. Just look at your mother's disapproving glare, Fenn. And you know that your sister Maria spent all year dreaming up that rather fetching concoction of Verulean lace she's wearing. But it doesn't compare with our crasher's effort."
"If she's from Outback, she might not know she's at risk with old Walteron," said Cordane, sounding a bit anxious. He was a considerate and responsible young man. "The gavotte's not easy to master. She's obviously danced it before and often. They don't do that sort of thing in the Streets!"
"Dance with her next then, Cordane. You know the Street accents," urged Deagan. Before his friends could vacillate, he took them both by the elbows and propelled them through the onlookers to the point where the girl and Walteron were likely to finish the gavotte. "If she's not Street, you take the next dance, Fenn. You range enough in the Outback to identify their twang."
"Then you'll dance with her and short out her dress," said Cordane, indignantly pulling his arm from his friend's grasp.
"Short her dress? Here in the Residence?" Deagan grinned sardonically and jerked his head toward his father, who was laughing affably with some ranking outworld guests. The PM's moods could change to implacable sternness when necessary, and all three young men knew it. "Besides, shorting would bum her between the contact points. My interest is purely theoretical. The creation is ingenious."
"Expensive, too, I'd say," added Fenn. "She's like a lovely double-moon mist."
Cordane blinked in surprise, for the young Domainer was not usually given to metaphors.
"Under that face veil, she could be ugly as a roake, but right now, what a fillip to a dull dance," said Deagan. "Quickly, Corrie. The dance is ending!" He gave his friend a push forward onto the dance area so that the slick surface all but catapulted Cordane against Walteron.
"Look, the old lecher won't relinquish," said Deagan, irritated, as he and Fenn watched the exchange between the two would-be partners. "Let's reinforce before Corrie muffs it." Deagan, clutching Fenn unobtrusively at the elbow, strode quickly over to the trio. "Oh, lovely maiden of the double-moon mists," he opened, with a click of this heels and a smart salute in keeping with his elegant formal Space uniform, "my friend here" - he gestured to Fenn, since names were never exchanged at a costumed Touch-Down dance - "is a shy and gentle youth who, like myself, is all admiration for your raiment. My sincerest compliments on your originality."
"Accepted, good sir," the girl said with such composure and in such pure Standard accents that Deagan knew that she was neither Streetie, newcomer, nor Outback Domainer.
"Since he is so shy, may I request that you favor him with the next dance?" Deagan continued, subtly changing his position to form, with his two friends, a circle in front of the girl that excluded Walteron.
"The dance after the one I am claiming by right of first request," said Cordane, with a smart clap of his boot heels and a mock glare at Deagan and Fenn.
One could just perceive her smile through the coruscating mist of her face veil, but her eyes, a clear, intelligent green emphasized by the shifting shades of her attire, gleamed with amusement. A flick of her green gaze told Deagan that she was aware of Walteron, fuming at the deft exclusion and the man's obvious keen intention to extend his acquaintance with her.
"I put in my most humble bid for the third dance, lovely lady," said Deagan, "and each third one afterward."
"You mean to monopolize my dances?" She looked from one importuning costumed officer to the next, avoiding Walteron's attempts to reclaim her attention.
"Three doesn't constitute a monopoly," said Fenn, who tended to be literal.
"But assuredly offers protection," added Deagan.
"Mutual protection?" She tilted her head sideways just slightly in Walteron's direction. Her eyes lingered on Deagan's face, and he knew she had taken the warning,
"Please say yes," Cordane urged, with just the right note of petition in his voice so that she could be swayed to compliance without appearing to offend the other whilom partners. She nodded assent to Cordane.