'Andrea Polo y De Gras,' CenCom said. 'You won't like her, either. She doesn't want you.'
'With the Polo y De Gras name, I'm not surprised,' Tia sighed. 'Wants something with a little more zing to it than A and E, hmm? Would she be offended if I agreed with her before she bothered to come out here?'
'I doubt it,' CenCom replied, 'but let me check.' A pause, and then he came back. 'She's very pleased, actually. I think that she has something cooking with the Family, and the strings haven't had time to get pulled yet. Piff. High Families. I don't know why they send their children to Space Academy in the first place.'
Tia felt moved to contradict him. 'Because some of them do very well and become a credit to the Services,' she replied, with just a hint of reproach.
'True, and I stand corrected. Well, your last brawn candidate is the late Alexander Joli-Chanteu.' The cheer in his voice told her that he was making a bad joke out of the situation.
'Late, hmm? That isn't going to earn him any gold stars in his Good-Bee Book,' Tia said, a bit acidly. Her parents' fetish for punctuality had set a standard she expected those around her to match. Especially brawn candidates.
Well, then at least go over his records. She scanned them quickly and came up, confused. When Alexander was good, he was very, very, good. And when he was bad, he was abysmal. Often in the same subject. He would begin a class with the lowest marks possible, then suddenly catch fire, turn around, and pull a miraculous save at the end of the semester. Erratic performances, said his personality profile. Tia not only agreed, she thought that the evaluator was understating the case.
CenCom interrupted her confusion. 'Whoop! He got right by me! Here he comes, Tia, ready or not!'
Alexander didn't bother with the lift, he ran up the stairs, arriving out of breath, with longish hair mussed and uniform rumpled.
That didn't earn him any points either, although it was better than Chria's leather.
He took a quick look around to orient himself, then turned immediately to face the central column where she was housed, a nicety that only Carl and Chria had observed. It didn't matter, really, and a lot of shell-persons didn't care, so long as the softpersons faced one set of 'eyes' at least, but Tia felt, as Moira did, that it was more considerate of a brawn to face where you were, rather than empty cabin.
'Hypatia, dear lady, I am most humbly sorry to be late for this interview,' he said, slowly catching his breath. 'My sensei engaged me in a game of Go, and I completely lost all track of time.'
He ran his blunt-fingered hand through his unruly dark hair and grinned ruefully, little smile-crinkles forming around his brown eyes. 'And here I had a perfectly wonderful speech all memorized, about how fitting it is that the lady named for the last librarian at Alexandria and the brawn named for Alexander should become partners, and the run knocked it right out of my head!'
Well! He knows where my name came from! Or at least he had the courtesy and foresight to look it up. Hmm. She considered that for a moment, then put it in the 'plus' column. He was not handsome, but he had a pleasant, blocky sort of face. He was short, well, so was the original Alexander, by both modern standards and those of his own time. She decided to put his general looks in the 'plus' column too, along with his politeness. While she certainly wasn't going to choose her brawns on the basis of looks, it would be nice to have someone who provided a nice bit of landscape.
'Minus', of course, were for being late and very untidy when he finally did arrive.
'I think I can bring myself to forgive you,' she said dryly. 'Although I'm not certain just what exactly detained you.'
'Ah, besides a hobby of ancient history, Terran history, that is, especially military history and strategy, I, ah, I cultivate certain kinds of martial arts.' He ran his hand through his hair again, in what was plainly a nervous gesture. 'Oriental martial arts. One soft form and one hard form. Tai Chi and Karate. I know most people don't think that's at all necessary, but, well, A and E Couriers are unarmed, and I don't like to think of myself as helpless. Anyway, my sensei, that's a martial arts Master, got me involved in a game of Go, and when you're playing against a Master, there is nothing simple about Go.' He bowed his head a moment and looked sheepish. 'I lost all track of time, and they had to page me. I really am sorry about making you wait.'
Tla wasn't quite sure what to make of that. 'Sit down, will you?' she said absently, wondering why, with this fascination with things martial and military, he hadn't shown any interest in the Military Services. 'Do you play chess as well?'
He nodded. 'Chess, and Othello, and several computer games. And if you have any favorites that I don't know, I would be happy to learn them.' He sat quietly, calmly, without any of Garrison's fidgeting. In fact, it was that very contrast with Garrison that made her decide resolutely against that young man. A few months of fidgeting, and she would be ready to trank him to keep him quiet.
'Why Terran history?' she asked, curiously. 'That isn't the kind of fascination I'd expect to find in a, a space- jockey.'
He grinned. It was a very engaging, lopsided grin. 'What, haven't you interviewed my classmate Chria yet?
