There was a champagne bucket beside him, but the bottle in it was empty. He looked about the room for a waiter.
Dian said gently, “Do you really think you need any more, Don?”
He looked across the table at her. She was as beautiful as ever. No, that wasn’t right. She was pretty, but not beautiful. She was just a damn pretty girl, not one of these glamour items.
Don said, “Look, I can’t remember. Did we get married?”
Her laugh tinkled. “Married! I only ran into you two or three hours ago.” She hesitated before saying further, “I had assumed that you were deliberately avoiding me. Callisto isn’t that big.”
Don Mathers said slowly, “Well, if we’re not married, let me decide when I want another bottle of the grape, eh?”
Dian flushed. “Sorry, Don.”
The headwaiter approached bearing another magnum of vintage wine. He beamed at Don Mathers. “Having a good time, sir?”
“Okay,” Don said shortly. When the other was gone he downed a full glass, felt the fumes almost immediately.
He said to Dian, “I haven’t been avoiding you, Di. We just haven’t met. The way I remember, the last time we saw each other, back on Earth, you gave me quite a slap in the face. The way I remember, you didn’t think I was hero enough for you.” He poured another glass of the champagne.
Di’s face was still flushed. She said, her voice low, “I misunderstood you, Don. Even after your brilliant defeat of that Kraden cruiser, I still, I admit, think I basically misunderstood you. I told myself that it could have been done by any pilot of a Scout, given that one in a million break. It just happened to be you, who made that suicide dive attack that succeeded. A thousand other pilots might also have taken the million to one suicide chance rather than let the Kraden escape.”
“Yeah,” Don said. Even in his alcohol, he was surprised at her words. He said gruffly, “Sure anybody might’ve done it. Pure luck. But why’d you change your mind about me, then? How come the switch of heart?”
“Because of what you’ve done since, darling.”
He closed one eye, the better to focus.
“Since?”
He recognized the expression in her eyes. A touch of star gleam. That little girl back on Earth, the receptionist at the Interplanetary Lines building, she’d had it. In fact, in the past few months Don had seen it in many feminine faces. And all for him.
Dian said, “Instead of cashing in on your prestige, you’ve been devoting yourself to something even more necessary to the fight than bringing down individual Kraden cruisers.”
Don looked at her. He could feel a nervous tic beginning in his left eyebrow. Finally, he reached for the champagne again and filled his glass. He said, “You really go for this hero stuff, don’t you?”
She said nothing, but the star shine was still in her eyes.
He made his voice deliberately sour. “Look, suppose I asked you to come back to my apartment with me tonight?”
“Yes,” she said softly.
“And told you to bring your overnight bag along,” he added brutally.
Dian looked into his face. “Why are you twisting yourself, your inner-self, so hard, Don? Of course I’d come— if that’s what you wanted.”
“And then,” he said flatly, “suppose I kicked you out in the morning?”
Dian winced, but she kept her eyes even with his, her own moist now. “You forget,” she whispered. “You have been awarded the Galactic Medal of Honor, the bearer of which can do no wrong.”
“Oh, God,” Don muttered. He filled his glass, still again, motioned to a nearby waiter.
“Yes, sir,” the waiter said.
Don said, “Look, in about five minutes I’m going to pass out. See that I get back to my hotel, will you? And that this young lady gets to her home. And, waiter, just send my bill to the hotel too.”
The other bowed. “The owner’s instructions, sir, are that Captain Mathers must never see a bill in this establishment.”
Dian said, “Don!”
He didn’t look at her. He raised his glass to his mouth and shortly afterward the fog rolled in again.
When it rolled out, the unfamiliar taste of black coffee was in his mouth. He shook his head for clarity.
He seemed to be in some working class restaurant. Next to him, in a booth, was a fresh-faced Sub-lieutenant of the—Don squinted at the collar tabs—yes, of the Space Service. A Scout pilot.
Don stuttered, “What’s… goin’… on?”
The pilot said apologetically, “Sub-lieutenant Pierpont, sir. You seemed so far under the weather, I took over.”
“Oh, you did, eh?”
“Well, yes, sir. You were, well, reclining in the gutter, sir. In spite of your, well, appearance, your condition, I recognized you, sir.”
“Oh.” His stomach was an objecting turmoil.
The Lieutenant said, “Want to try some more of this coffee now, sir? Or maybe some soup or a sandwich?”
Don groaned. “No. No, thanks. Don’t think I could hold it down.”
The pilot grinned. “You must’ve thrown a classic, sir.”
“I guess so. What time is it? No, that doesn’t make any difference. What’s the date?”
Pierpont told him.
It was hard to believe. The last he could remember he’d been with Di. With Di in some nightclub. He wondered how long ago that had been.
He fumbled in his clothes for a smoke and couldn’t find one. He didn’t want it anyway.
He growled at the Lieutenant, “Well, how go the One Man Scouts?”
Pierpont grinned back at him. “Glad to be out of them, sir?”
“Usually.”
Pierpont looked at him strangely. “I don’t blame you, I suppose. But it isn’t as bad these days as it used to be while you were still in the Space Service, sir.”
Don grunted. “How come? Two weeks to a month, all by yourself, watching the symptoms of space cafard progress. Then three weeks of leave, to get drunk in, and then another stretch in space.”
The pilot snorted deprecation. “That’s the way it used to be.” He fingered the spoon of his coffee cup. “That’s the way it still should be, of course. But it isn’t. They’re spreading the duty around now and I spend less than one week out of four on patrol.”
Don hadn’t been listening too closely, but now he looked up. “What’d’ya mean?”
Pierpont said, “I mean, sir, I suppose this isn’t bridging security, seeing who you are, but fuel stocks are so low that we can’t maintain full patrols any more.”
There was a cold emptiness in Don Mathers’ stomach.
He said, “Look, I’m still woozy. Say that again, Lieutenant.”
The Lieutenant told him again.
Don Mathers rubbed the back of his hand over his mouth and tried to think.
He said finally, “Look, Lieutenant. First let’s get another cup of coffee into me, and maybe that sandwich you were talking about. Then would you help me to get back to my hotel?”
By the fourth day, his hands weren’t trembling any longer. He ate a good breakfast, dressed carefully, then took a hotel limousine down to the offices of the Mathers, Demming and Rostoff Corporation.
At the entrance to the inner sanctum the heavyset Scotty looked up at his approach. He said, “The boss has been looking for you, Mr. Mathers, but right now you ain’t got no appointment, have you? Him and Mr. Rostoff is having a big conference. He says to keep everybody out.”
