"Oh," said Herr Syrup.
His pipe had gone out. He became very busy rekindling it "Vell, Miss," he said, "in dat case you vill help us out and try to distract de mayor's mind off his vork, vill you not? It ban your patriotic duty. Yust- encourashe-him-in-a-nice-vay-because-he-is-really-in-love-vit'-you-okay? Good night." And hiding his beet-colored face in a cloud of smoke, Herr Syrup bolted.
Emily stared after him. "Why, good heavens," she whispered. "I mean, actually!"
Her eyes traveled back to Grendel and the stars. "But that isn't so," she protested. "It's just what they call blarney. Makros Logos to be exact."
No one answered her for a moment, then feet resounded in the companionway and a hearty voice boomed: "Emily, are ye up there?"
"Oh, dear!" exclaimed the girl. She looked around for a mirror, made do with a polished chrome surface, and adjusted her wreath and the yellow hair below it. She must not let a foreigner see an Anglian lady disarrayed, and really, she regretted not having any lipstick and felt sure that abstention from such materials didn't represent the true Duncanism.
Rory McConnell clumped in, his shoulders brushing the door jambs and his head stooped under the lintel. "Ah, macushla, I found ye," he said. "Will ye not speek for a bit to a weary man, so he can sleep content? For even the hour or two of testin' I've been able to do today on that devil's machine has revealed nothin' to me but me own bafflement, an' 'tis consolation I need."
Emily found herself breathing as hard as if she had run a long distance. Oh, stop it! she scolded.
Hyperventilating! No wonder you feel so weak and dizzy.
The Erseman leaned close. For once he did not grin, he smiled, and it was not fair that a barbarian could have so tender a smile. "Sure an' I never knew a pulse in any throat could be that adorable," he murmured.
"Nice weather we're having, isn't it?" said Emily, since nothing else came to mind.
"The wither in space is always noice, though perhaps just a trifle monotonous," quirked McConnell. He came around the pilot chair and stood beside her. The red hairs on the back of one hand brushed her bare thigh; she gulped and clung to the chair for support.
After all, her duty was to distract him. She was certain that even Isadora Duncan, the pure and serene, would have approved.
McConnell reached out a long arm and switched off the bridge lights, so that they stood in the soft, drenching radiance of Grendel, among a million stars. "'Tis enough to make a man believe in destiny," he said.
"It is?" asked Emily. Her voice wobbled, and she berated herself. "I mean, what is?"
"Crossin' space on this mission an' findin' ye waitin' at the yonder end. For I'll admit to yez what I've dared say to no one else, 'tis not important to me who owns that silly piece of ore Laoighise. I went with O'Toole because a McConnell has never hung back from any brave venture, arragh, how ye wring truth from me which I had not ayven admitted to meself! Oh, to be sure, I'm proud to do me country a service, but I cannot think 'tis so great an' holy a deed as O'Toole prates of. So I came more on impulse than plan, me darlin', an' yet I found me destiny. The which is your own sweet self."
Emily's heart thumped with unreasonable violence. She clasped her hands tightly to her breast, because one of them had been sneaking toward McDonnell's broad paw. "Oh?" she said out of dry lips. "I mean, really?"
"Yes. An' sorry I am that our work distresses yez. I can only hope to make amends later. But trust we'll have fifty or sixty years for that!"
"Er, yes," said Emily.
"What?" roared McConnell. He spun on his heel, laid his hands about her waist, and stared wildly down into her eyes. "Did I hear ye say yes?"
"I … I … I—No, please listen to me!" wailed Emily, pushing against his chest. "Let go! I mean, all I wanted to say was, if you don't really care how this business comes out, if you really don't think Lois is worth risking a war over and—" She drew a deep breath and tacked a smile on her face. Now was the time to distract him, as Mr. Syrup had requested. "And if you really want to please me, R-r-r-ro—Major Mc-Connell, then why don't you help us right now? Just let us make that sparky osculator or whatever it is to call New Winchester for help, and everything will be so nice and—I mean—"
His hands fell to his sides and his mouth stretched tight. He turned from her, leaned on the instrument board and stared out at the constellations.
"No," he said. "I've given me oath to support the Force to the best of me ability. Did I turn on me comrades, there'd be worse than hellfire waitin' for me, there'd be the knowin' of meself for less than a man."
Emily moistened her lips. There must be some way to distract him, she thought frantically. That beautiful lady agent in The Son of the Spider, the one who lured Sir Frederic Banton up to her apartment while the Octopus stole the secret papers from his office—She stood frozen among thunders, unable to bring herself to it, until another memory came, some pictures of an accidental atomic explosion of Callisto and its aftermath. That sort of thing might be done to little children, deliberately, if there was a war.
She stole up behind McConnell, laid her cheek against his back and her arms around his waist. "Oh, Rory," she said.
"What?" He spun around again. He was so quick on his feet she didn't have time to let go and was whipped around with him. "Where are ye?" he called.
"Here," she said, picking herself up.
She leaned on his arm—she had never before known a man who could take her whole weight thus without even stirring—and forced her eyes toward his. "Oh, Rory," she tried again.
"What do ye mean?" It was a disquieting surprise that he did not sweep her into his embrace, but stood rigidly and stared.
"Rory," she said. Then, feeling that her conversation was too limited, she got out in a rush of words: "Let's just forget all these awful things. I mean, let's just stay up here and, and, and I'll explain about Duncanism to you and, well, I mean don't go back to the engine room, please!"
He said in a rasp: "So 'tis me ye'd be keepin' up here whilst auld Syrup does what he will in the stern? An' what do ye offer me besides conversation?"
"Everything!" said Emily, taking an automatic cue from the beautiful lady agent vs. Sir Frederic;
because her own mind felt full of glue and hammers. "Everything, eh?"
Suddenly his arm jerked from beneath her. She fell in a heap. The green-clad body towered above, up and up and up, and a voice like gunfire crashed:
"So that's the game, is it? So ye think I'd sell the honor of the McConnells for—for—Why, had I known yez for what ye are, I'd not have given yez a second look the third time we met. An' to think I wanted yez for the mother of me sons!"
"No," cried Emily. She sat up, hearing herself call like a stranger across light-years. "No, Rory, when I said everything I didn't mean everything! I just—"
"Never mind," he snarled, and went from the bridge. The door cracked shut behind him.