“Look,” Bron said to the burly little Philip, “when are you going to get me an assistant I can use? This one was into ... what was it? Cryogenics or something?” Bron really disliked Philip.
“Oh come on. You don’t need a trained assistant for that—” Philip’s fists (hairy as his chest) bunched on either side of his tray. “You know what I think—?” He looked down, considered, picked up something messy with his fingers, and ducked to catch it in his mouth before it fell apart—“I think he just doesn’t like dykes.” He nodded, chewing, toward Audri, sucking one finger after the other, loudly. “You know?”
“What do you mean?” Bron demanded. “I like Audri, and she’s ...” Then he felt ridiculous. By intentional tastelessness, Philip had maneuvered him into saying something unintentionally tasteless and was (no doubt) wracking up points, behind that congenial leer. Bron looked at Audri (whom he did like); she was twisting open the spout of a coffee bulb.
“With friends like you ...” Philip said, and nodded knowingly. “Look, we’re all at loose ends around here right now. It’s confusion from one side to the other.” Philip’s left nipple was very large. There was a bald ring around it. The hair follicles had been removed. The flesh over that pectoral was somewhat looser than that over the right. Periodically, when a new child was expected at Philip’s commune, out on the Ring, the breast would enlarge (three pills every lunch-time: two little white ones and one large red), and Philip would take off two or three days a week wet-leave. Bron had been out to the last Sovereignty Day blow-out—
“Look,” Philip said, sucking one thick finger then another (He was a head shorter than Bron), “I’m a very straightforward guy—you know that. I think it: I say it. If I say it, you know I’m not holding it against you—unless I say I am.”
“Well, I’m pretty straightforward too.” Bron ran his gloved thumb carefully over the last of the mashed lentils on his tray, put his thumb into his mouth, and pulled it, carefully, out. “At least about my emotions. I—”
One of the junior programmers, wearing a blue body-stocking with large, silver diamond-shapes, said, “Hi, Bron—” then realized a “discussion” was going on, ducked a diamond-eyed head, and hurried away.
“I didn’t like her,” Bron said. “She didn’t like me. That’s not a situation / can work in.”
“Yeah, yeah ...” Philip shoveled up more food. “The way the whole emotional atmosphere around here is getting with all this war scare, I’m surprised anybody can work, period.”
“Bron is one of your better workers, too.” Audri took another bite of the long thing with nuts. “So just get off his back, Phil.” (There were times his liking for Audri almost approached a sort of platonic love.)
“I’m off. I’m off. Hey, you’ve been at your new place practically six months now. Frozen in yet?”
“It’s okay,” Bron said. “No problems.”
“I thought that’s where you’d end up feeling most at home.” In one of those heart-to-hearts Philip was always initiating without your knowing it, back when Bron used to put up with them, Philip had actually given Bron the name of Serpent’s House. “I just had a feeling you might find things easier there. I’m glad you have. Other than the Day Star business—no, I haven’t forgotten it—” Phil waved a thick, hairy, wet forefinger—”/ certainly don’t have any complaints about your work. Don’t worry, we’ll get you an assistant. I told Audri, gay-male and normal or straight-female su-perwoman ... to which Audri said, I’ll have you know: ‘Well, he likes me!’” Philip laughed. “We’ll get you one; and with the proper training. That’s the kind you can relate to—speaking of gay males ...” Philip swallowed, his hand, on its hirsute forearm, dropped below the table; the forearm moved back and forth, and the hand emerged, somewhat drier. “Marny—you remember her from my commune, Marny? Small, dark—?” The other hand came up and together they described a near callipygous shape. (From the Sovereignty Day shindig Bron remembered her very well.) Philip nudged Audri, winked at Bron. “She’s the one who’s the ice-engineer—climbing up and down the cold-faces like something out of a damn ice-opera! The last two kids she had, I was the dad. Anyway, she’s going to have another one. And you’ll never guess who by—Danny!” He turned to Audri, then to Bron. “You remember Danny ... ?” Philip frowned. (Bron remembered Danny, and with some distaste.) Philip’s frown reversed. “Anyway, this is only the second kid he’s ever had in his life—and the first in this commune.” Philip’s fist fell to the table, relaxing—like a spilled sack of potatoes. “You know how important kids can be to gay guys—I mean, most of the time they think they’re just never going to have any, you know? Now I don’t care about kids. I got six of my own here and—
Lord, I must have kids all over the Solar System. Let’s see, three on lo, one on Ganymede, even one back on Luna, and a couple out on Neriad—” He frowned, suddenly. “You got kids, Bron? I mean, I know about Audri’s.”
“A couple,” Bron said. Back on Mars a woman had once announced to him she intended to get pregnant by him. In the first year of his emigration, a letter had even followed him out here, with a picture of a baby—a double-chinned infant suckling at a breast much larger than he remembered it. He had been singularly unmoved. “On Earth,” Bron added finally. Conception had taken place on Mars; but the letter had come from Earth.
“Mmmm,” Philip said, with a licensed sectarian’s discomfort at mention of things too far in the past. “I never had any on a world—anyway: I asked Danny if he was going to help nurse.” (Unlicensed sector people, Bron reflected, went on about the families they’d come from. Licensed sector people went on about the families they had. For all the latter’s commitment to the here and now, Bron sometimes found both equally objectionable.) “—I mean because Marny wants someone to switch off with. Anyway, you know what he told me? You know what he said? He’s worried about his figure!” Philip shook his head, then repeated: “Worried about his figurel Well, you know what that means for me.” His hand came up and made a suggestive curve before his looser pectoral; his heavily-lashed lids lowered as he regarded himself. “Two little white ones—”
“—and one big red one.” Audri laughed. “Well, congratulations to you all.”
“His figure!” Philip shook his head, smiled fondly. “I mean Danny’s part of my damn commune and I love him. I really do—but, sometimes, I wonder why.”
Bron decided to put his mask back on; but Philip suddenly pushed the red plastic button on his corner of the table.
Philip’s tray, with its smeared remains, shook, shivered, dissolved, and was sucked through the grid below: Whooooshl While it was Whoooshing, Philip rubbed his hands over the grid, first backs, then palms, and, satisfied, stood. The Whoooosh died. “Look, when I came over here, I figured I was interrupting a delicate situation. I thought it might need interrupting and took my chance. You know you got Audri pretty upset over getting that woman canned.” To Audri he said: “I want to talk to you about what we tell the Day Star Plus people about Day Star Minus when I have to explain to them why no metalogical reduction yet. And soon.” He turned to Bron: “And that’s an excuse for Audri to cut out on you if it gets too rough, understand? All open and aboveboard. And you—you want your chance to stomp my nuts? You get Day Star out of the way inside a month! I’ve been telling people for a week now there’s no way possible we can have it ready inside three. You finish it under that, and my face will be red all over four departments. See you both around.” He slipped from the table and lumbered (neither tall nor broad, just thick, Philip still gave the impression of lumbering everywhere) across the cafeteria.
Bron looked at Audri. The hair showing on the right of her head was a riot of green, gold, purple, and orange. The visible half of her face was set, sullen, and preoccupied.