Noel Dacco smiled widely as Gomez introduced him to Alicia and Raven.
“You passed the restaurant’s entrance,” Gomez said, pointing to the open doorway. People were streaming into the place.
“Yes, I know. I saw you, Tómas, with these two beautiful ladies, and came up to greet you.”
Alicia smiled minimally and Raven reached for Gomez’s hand. The four of them entered the restaurant and were quickly seated.
A robot waiter rolled up to their table and took their drink orders. Dacco asked for lime juice.
“Are you a Moslem?” Raven asked.
“Very observant!” said Dacco. To Gomez, he added, “You have a very bright young lady here.”
Tómas’s face reddened. He nodded but said nothing.
Before either of the others could speak, Dacco told them, “You’d never believe the difficulty I had getting here from Haven II. Is this habitat in some sort of lockdown situation?”
“Lockdown?”
“There was no connection between this wheel and Number Two, where I’m quartered. I had to call Evan Waxman and get him to provide me transportation. I arrived here in a dinky little shuttlecraft.”
Alicia smiled a bit and said, “Reverend Umber doesn’t want the residents here to mix with the visiting scientists.”
“Why not?”
“He wants the residents to be free of all their old associations with Earth.”
“Ah! And he’s afraid I’ll contaminate his flock?”
Her smile broadening, Alicia said, “Something like that.”
Dacco swung his gaze across the crowded, bustling restaurant. “You mean all these people are refugees from Earth?”
“Émigrés,” said Alicia. “This is their home.”
“And Umber doesn’t want them contaminated by people like me.”
“By people who can return to Earth,” Alicia corrected. “All of us here have given up our former ways of life. We’re going to live here for the rest of our lives.”
Dacco blinked several times. Gomez said, “Why don’t we order some dinner?”
“Why not?” said Dacco, his toothy grin returning. “That’s what we’re here for, isn’t it?”
Halfway through their appetizers, Raven asked, “You said you had to get Evan Waxman to provide you transportation between here and Haven II.”
“That’s right,” Dacco answered, as he deftly speared a stalk of asparagus from his salad plate.
“Do you know him personally?”
Dacco’s smile stayed fixed on his face, but somehow Raven thought he looked suddenly less than happy.
At last he answered, “Yes, slightly. He personally approved my request to come here.”
Raven caught his hesitation. He’s lying, she said to herself. I wonder why.
WAXMAN AND DACCO
Precisely at 1:00 P.M., Waxman’s new assistant called over the intercom, “Noel Dacco to see you, sir.”
Looking up from the report he was reading, Waxman said, “Send him in. No interruptions while he’s here. And order luncheon for two, please.”
“Yes, sir.”
His office door slid open and Dacco stepped in, smiling, broad-shouldered, nimble as a ballet dancer.
As Waxman got up from his chair, Dacco stepped to the desk and stuck out his hand. “It’s a pleasure to meet you in person, Mr. Waxman.”
Taking the black man’s hand in his own and smiling tightly, Waxman said, “It’s good to meet you face-to-face, Noel.” Gesturing to the two upholstered chairs in front of the desk, he said, “Why don’t you sit down? Lunch should be here shortly.”
Dacco seated himself in the chair to his left. Is he left-handed? Waxman asked himself.
Easing back into his own commodious chair, Waxman asked, “So how is everything going back on Earth?”
“Very well,” said Dacco, still smiling. “Sales are steadily increasing. You might give some thought to raising your production goals.”
“That good?”
Nodding, Dacco said, “The habitats in Earth orbit are a strong market. So are the stations orbiting Jupiter.”
“And the Rock Rats?”
“A reliable market. It’s all in the reports I’ve sent you.”
Waxman nodded. “Your latest report mentioned some problem at the power complex on Mercury.”
“A little argument over paying for the Rust they’ve ordered. It’s being straightened out.”
“No pay, no Rust,” said Waxman. “They pay up front.”
“That’s our policy, I know. But we’ve found that letting the customer have a sample before he plunks down his money makes it much easier to get him to pony up the whole amount a little later.”
Waxman shrugged. “A distribution problem.”
“It’s being handled. No worries.”
Waxman’s phone buzzed. He glared at the tiny console. “I said no interruptions!”
His assistant’s voice replied timidly, “Your lunches are here, sir.”
“Oh. Bring them right in.”
“Yes, sir.”
The office door slid open again, and Waxman’s assistant carried in a sizeable tray loaded with a pair of lunches and drinks.
“On the conference table,” he told the woman.
Dacco eyed her appreciatively. She was tall, willowy, with reddish-blond hair and a doe’s provocative eyes. Slim figure, but long legs—almost hidden by a floor-length black skirt that was slit from the hip.
She set out the two lunches on the corner table and left the office without a word.
“She’s a refugee from Earth?” Dacco asked, once the door slid shut behind her.
“War casualty. Lost her right leg in the fighting in Tasmania.”
“Pity.”
“She does very well with her prosthetic leg.”
“In bed?”
Waxman smiled thinly. “Or on a trampoline.”
Dacco’s look of surprise made Waxman want to laugh. But he suppressed the urge.
Nearly an hour later, as the two men sat at the circular conference table with the scattered crumbs of their lunches between them, Dacco said, “I had dinner last night with a woman who told me she used to be your assistant.”
Waxman almost uttered Alicia’s name, but he held himself back at the last instant. No sense letting him know I can watch him without his knowledge of it.
“My assistant?”
“Alicia Polanyi.”
“Oh, her.” Waxman forced a chuckle. “She’s opened a women’s clothing boutique. She and a former whore. They’ll go broke in a month or so.”
“Really?”
Waxman nodded as he reached for his cup of coffee.
“She seems quite determined to make a success of her establishment,” Dacco said.
With a careless shrug Waxman replied, “They’ll be out of business very soon.”
“Pity.”
“The iron laws of economics.”
“The dismal science.”
Waxman asked, “Did you find her attractive?”
“A little too skeletal for me,” Dacco replied. “The other one was much sexier.”
“Raven Marchesi. She ought to be sexier. She was a whore, back on Earth.”
“Not here?”
With a sly grin, Waxman answered, “Almost.”
For several silent moments, Dacco seemed to mull Waxman’s reply in his mind. Then he said, “She seems attached to the astronomer.”
“Gomez? Really?”
“Looked that way to me.”
“Raven and Tómas Gomez,” Waxman mused. “That’s interesting.”
“So she’s not available?”
Waxman studied Dacco’s face and saw desire burning in his dark eyes. He asked himself, Can I bind him to me with Raven? It’s worth a try.
“She can be made available,” Waxman finally answered, with a knowing smile.