vigorous sports throughout her life. And the changeable sea-blue of her slacksuit matched her eyes…
'American, really. My family moved from Denmark when I was small. And I'd better keep a clear head, right?' His tongue was speaking for him. Angry at himself, he took control back. 'How do you do.' He offered his hand. Her clasp was firm, cool, brief. At least she wasn't playing sultry or exotic. 'Uh, care for a drink?'
'I have one yonder. Please to follow.' She must have arrived early and waited for him. He picked up his beer and accompanied her to a privacy-screened table. Murky though the corner was, he could make out fine lines at the corners of her eyes and lips; and that fair skin had known much weather. She wasn't quite young, then. Late thirties, Earth calendar, he guessed.
They settled down. Her glass held white wine. She had barely sipped of it. 'Thank you for that you came,' she said. 'I realize this is peculiar.'
Well, shucks, he resisted admitting, I may be seven or eight years older than you and solidly married, but any wench this slightly rates a chance to make sense. 'It is an odd place to meet,' he countered. She smiled. 'I thought it would be appropriate.' He declined the joke. 'Over-appropriate.'
'Ja, saa?' The blond brows lifted. 'How so?'
'I never did like staginess,' he blurted. His hand waved around. 'I knew this joint when it was a raffish den full of memories from the occupation and the tag-end of wartime afterward. But each time I called at Wunderland and dropped in, it'd become more of a tourist trap.'
'Well, those old memories are romantic; and, yes, some of mine live here too,' she murmured. Turning straightforward again: 'But it has an advantage, exactly because of what it now is. Few of its patrons will have heard about you. They are, as you say, mostly tourists. News like your deeds at that distant star is sensational but it takes a while to cross interstellar space and hit hard in public awareness on planets where the societies are different from yours or mine. Here, at this hour of the day, you have a good chance of not to be recognized and pestered. Also, because people here often make assignations, it is the custom to ignore other couples.'
Saxtorph felt his cheeks heat up. What the devil! The schoolboy he had once been lay long and deeply buried. Or so he'd supposed. It would be a ghost he could well do without. 'Is that why you didn't want my wife along?' he asked roughly.
She nodded. 'You two together are especially conspicuous, no? I found that yesterday evening she would be away, and thought you would not. Then I tried calling you.'
He couldn't repress a chuckle. 'Yah, you guessed right. Poor Dorcas, she had no escape from addressing a meeting of the Weibliche Astroverein.' He'd looked forward to several peaceful hours alone. But when the phone showed this face, he'd accepted the call, which he probably would not have done otherwise. 'After she got back, I took her down to the bar for a stiff drink.' But he'd kept his promise not to mention the conversation. Half ashamed, he harshened his tone. 'Why'd you do no more than talk me into a, uh, an appointment?' He hadn't liked telling Dorcas that he meant to go for a walk, might stop in at some pub, and if he found company he enjoyed-male, she'd taken for granted- would maybe return late. But he'd done it. 'Could you not have gone directly to the point? The line wasn't tapped, was it?'
'I did not expect so,' Tyra answered. 'Yet it was possible. Perhaps a government official who is snoopish. You have legal and diplomatic complications left over, from what happened at the dwarf star.'
Don't I know it, Saxtorph sighed to himself.
'There could even be undiscovered kzinti agents like Markham, trying for extra information that will help them or their masters,' she continued. 'You are marked, Captain. And in a way, that am I also.'
'Why the secrecy?' he persisted. 'Understand, I am not interested in anything illegal.'
'This is not.' She laid hold of her glass. Fingers grew white-nailed on its stem, and trembled the least bit. 'It is, well, extraordinary. Perhaps dangerous.'
'Then my wife and crew have got to know before we decide.'
'Of course. First I ask you. If you say no, that is an end of the matter for you, and I must try elsewhere. I will have small hope. But if you agree, and your shipmates do, best that we hold secret. Otherwise certain parties- they will not want this mission, or they will want it carried out in a way that gives my cause no help. We present them a fait accompli. Do you see?'
Likewise tense, he gulped at his beer. 'Uh, mind if I smoke?'
'Do.' The edges of her mouth dimpled. 'That pipe of yours has become famous like you.'
'Or infamous.' He fumbled briar, pouch, and lighter out of their pockets. Anxious to slack things off: 'The vice is disapproved of again on Earth, did you know? As if cancer and emphysema and the rest still existed. I think Puritanism runs in cycles. One periodicity for tobacco, one for alcohol, one for-Ah, hell, I'm babbling.'
'I believe men smoke much on Wunderland because it is a symbol,' she said. 'From the occupation era. Kzinti do not smoke. They dislike the smell and seldom allowed it in their presence. I grew up used to it on men.' She laughed. 'See, I can babble too.' Lifting her glass: 'Skaal.'
He touched his mug to it, repeating the word before remembering, in surprise: 'Wait, you people generally say, 'Prosit,' don't you?'
'They were mostly Scandinavians who settled in Skogarna,' Tyra explained. 'We have our own dialect. Some call it a patois.'
'Really? I'd hardly imagine that was possible in this day and age.'
'We were always rather isolated, there in the North. Under the occupation, more than ever. Kzinti, or the collaborationist government, monitored all traffic and communications. Few people had wide contacts, and those were very guarded. They drew into their neighborhoods. Keeping language and customs alive, that was one way they reminded themselves that humans were not everywhere and forever slaves of the rat-cats.' Speaking, Tyra had let somberness come upon her. 'This isolation is a root of the story I must tell you.'
Saxtorph wanted irrationally much to lighten her mood. 'Well, shall we get to it? You'd like to charter the Rover, you said, for a fairly short trip. But that's all you said, except for not blanching when I gave you a cost estimate. Which, by itself, immediately got me mighty interested.'
Her laugh gladdened him. 'I'm in luck. Is that your American folk-word? Exactly when I need a hyperdrive ship, here you come with the only one in known space that is privately owned, and you admit you are broke. I confess I am puzzled. You took damage on your expedition—' Her voice grew soft and serious. 'Besides that poor man the kzinti killed. But the harm was not else too bad, was it? And surely you have insurance, and I should think that super-rich gentleman on We Made It, Brozik, is grateful that you brought his daughter back safe.'
Saxtorph tamped his pipe. 'Sure. Still, losing a boat is fairly expensive. We haven't replaced Fido yet. Plus lesser repairs we needed, plus certain new equipment and refitting we decided have become necessary, plus the fact that insurance companies have never in history been prompt and in-full about anything except collecting their premiums. Brozik's paid us a generous bonus on the charter, yes, but we can't expect him to underwrite a marginal business like ours. His gratefulness has reasonable limits. After all, we were saving our own hides as well as Laurinda's, and she had considerable to do with it herself. We aren't really broke, but we have gone through a big sum, on top of normal overhead expenses, and meanwhile haven't had a chance to scare up any fresh trade.' He set fire to tobacco and rolled smoke across his palate. 'See, I'm being completely frank with you.' As he doubtless would not have been, this soon, were she homely or a man.
Again she nodded, thoughtfully. 'Yes, it must be difficult, operating a tramp freighter. You compete with government lines for a market that is-marginal, you said. When each planetary system contains ample raw materials, and it is cheapest to synthesize or recycle almost everything else, what actual tonnage goes between the stars?'
'Damn little, aside from passengers, and we lack talent for catering to them.' Saxtorph smiled. 'Oh, it might be fun to carry nonhumans, but outfitting for it would be a huge investment, and then we'd be locked into those rounds.'
'You wish to travel freely, widely. Freighting is your way to make it possible.' Tyra straightened. Her voice rang. 'Well, I offer you a voyage like none ever before!'
Caution awoke. He'd hate to think her dishonest. But she might be foolish-no, already he could dismiss that idea-she might be ill-informed. Planetsiders seldom had any notion of the complications in spacefaring. Physical requirements and hazards were merely the obvious ones. In addition, you had to make your nut, and avoid running afoul of several admiralty offices and countless bureaucrats, and keep every hatch battened through which the insurers might slither. 'That's what we're here to talk about,' Saxtorph said. 'Only talk. Any promises come later.'
