The footmen, at the four corners of the chamber, sat at little tables that folded from the wall. Tables? Sitting? That was bizarre. What, he reflected, was a footman for if he (or she) did not remain on foot?
The chamber rocked. Ripples rained the drapes. He touched the Spike’s arm. “I think we’re on our way ....”
She looked up, looked around, and laughed. They rocked, they jogged. On a view window a darkness, either clouds or mountains, moved. “This thing must date back from when they first got gravity under control!” she exclaimed. “I doubt if I’ve ever been in a piece of transportation as old as this before!” She put her hand on his, squeezed it.
Moments later, they locked course; the jogging stopped. On cue, one of the footmen rose, walked toward them, stepping gingerly among the cushions, stopped before them, and inclined her head: “Would you like a drink before dinner ... ?”
And in one horrifying moment, Bron realized he could not remember the name of that most expensive of drinks! What leapt to his mind was the name of that one, indeed, tastier, but cheaper—and by which one always rated clients Definitely Second Rate (far and above the most usual type) if they ordered it, or even suggested it.
The Spike was reading the Tarif again.
Discomfort concealed—Bron was sure it was concealed—he touched her arm once more. “My dear, the footman would like to know if you wanted anything.”
Her eyes came up. Smiling, she gave an embarrassed little shrug. “Oh, I don’t—well ... really ...”
He’d hope the misremembered name had passed her eyes, that its huge price had caught them.
She blinked at him, still smiling, still confused.
It hadn’t. (She would make a lousy whore, he thought, a trifle less fondly.) He said: “Do you have any ... Gold Flower Nectar?” The small of his back moistened; but it was the only name he could remember. (His forehead moistened too.) “No—No ... I think we’ll have something more expensive. I mean, you must have something more expensive that ... well, don’t you ... ?”
“We have Gold Flower Nectar,” the young woman said, nodding. “Shall I bring two?”
A drop of sweat ran down his arm, inside Sam’s borrowed sleeve. Seconds into the silence, the Spike said, glancing back and forth between the footmen and Bron, “Yes! That sounds marvelous.”
The footman nodded, started to turn, then, with a quizzical expression, asked: “You’re from Mars, aren’t you?” Bron thought: She thinks I’m a cheap Bellona John and the Spike is a really dumb whore! A sweat drop ran out of his sideburn and down his jaw.
The Spike laughed again. “No. I’m afraid we’re moonies. We’re part of the cultural exchange program.”
“Oh.” The woman nodded, smiled. “We keep Gold Flower Nectar mostly for the Martian clients—it really is very good,” which went directly to Bron, with a wink. “Earthies hardly ever even know about it!” She bowed again, turned, and went back between the curtains behind her table.
The Spike took Bron’s arm now, leaned closer. “Isn’t that marvelous! She thought we were from a worldl” She giggled. For a moment her forehead touched his cheek. (He almost flinched.) “I know it’s all play-acting, but it really is exciting ... if only as theater.”
“Well ...” he said, trying to smile, “I’m glad you’ie enjoying yourself.”
She squeezed his wrist. “And the way you seem to know exactly what’s going on, you really are the perfect person to go with!”
“Well ... thank you,” he said. “Thank you,” because he could think of nothing else to say.
“Tell me ...” And once more she leaned. “Isn’t ‘footmen’ a masculine word, though—I mean on Earth?”
Though he was no longer perspiring, he felt miserable. Her attempt at distraction merely goaded. Bron shrugged. “Oh, well ... isn’t ’e-girl’ a feminine one?”
“Yes,” she said, “but this is Earth, where such things traditionally—I’ve been led to understand—matter.”
He shrugged again, wishing that she would simply leave him alone. The footman returned, drinks on a mirrored tray.
He handed the Spike hers, took his. “Why don’t you let me pay as we go along,” he suggested.
“It would be just as convenient if you paid at the end,” the footman said, still smiling, but a little less. “Though if you’d prefer ... ?”
The Spike sipped. “From what we hear at home, convenience is supposed to be very important on Earth. Why don’t we do it that way?” Then she glanced at Bron; who nodded.
The footman nodded too—“Thank you—” and retired to her table.
Bron sipped the drink, whose flavor was all nostalgia, all memory, all of which announced so blaringly that it was not fifteen years ago (when he had last tasted it), that this was not Mars: that there were footwomen here instead of footmen; that convenience was the tradition (Then why, he wondered, momentarily angry, indulge an institution whose only purpose was inconvenient extravagance?), and that he was an uninitiate tourist.
No!
Play-acting it may be!
But that was a role he could not accept Both temperament and experience, however inadequate and outdated, denied it. He turned to the beaming Spike. “You still haven’t told me how the performance went this evening.”
“Ah ...” she said, leaning back and crossing her bare feet on the cushions before her, “the performance ... !”
Three times (Bron sat, dreading each one) the other three footmen offered them (the Spike liked Gold Flower Nectar—well, he liked it too. But that wasn’t the point) another drink, the second with the traditional nuts, the third with small fruits—olives, which he remembered as the hallmark of the best places. They offered three kinds, too: black, green, and yellow. He was impressed, which depressed him more. The client’s job was to impress, not be impressed. It was the client’s iob to supervise effects, to oversee, to direct the excellent performance. It was not, at this point anyway, her (or his) place to be carried away. With the next drink, they were offered a tray of small fish and meat delicacies, served on savory pastrv bases. With the last, thev were offered sweets, which Bron refused. “Afterwards,” he explained to her. “they’ll probably have some quite incredible confections, so we can pass these up in all good faith.”
She nodded appreciatively.
Then, there was light through the view window. Excitedly, the Spike leaned across him to look. The chamber began to jog and jerk. Abruptly the jerking ceased: they’d landed. The purple-pommed wall-ramp let down on its chains. Outside lights blazed in the distance and the darkness. The footmen rose to take their positions at the ramp’s four corners.
As they were walking between the first two, Bron said (In his mind he had gone over just how to say it several times): “/ think it was presumptuous to assume we were from Mars—or the Satellites. Or anyplace. How should they know, just from what we order, where we’re from?” He didn’t say it loudly. But he didn’t say it softly, either.
By the end of his statement, his glance, which had gone with calculated leisure around the night, reached the Spike—who was frowning. With folded arms, she slowed at the edge of the plush (by the last footman). “I suspect,” she said, with one slightly raised eyebrow, “it was because you called them ‘footmen.’ On the Explication de Tarif they’re called ‘hostesses.’
‘Footmen’ is probably the Martian term.”
Bron frowned, wondering why she chose that statement to slow down on. “Oh ...” he said, stepping from the end of the ramp, his eyes again going around the rocks, the railing, the waterfall. “Oh, well ... of course. Well, perhaps we’d better ...”
But the Spike, walking too, moved on a step ahead.
Beyond the red velvet ropes that railed the curving walk, rocks broke away, broke away further. Floodlights, lighting this tree or that bush, made the sky black and close as a u-1 ceiling.