She sighed and said, “When it comes to food and drink, father doesn’t exactly stint himself. He has agents who continually comb the world seeking out the best potables still remaining. He’ll pay anything.”
“You mean he’s got collections like this in all of his, uh, establishments?”
“Yes, but this is nothing. This is just for temporary visitors, guests. Down below, he has extensive cellars. There is more guzzle in this building alone than he, and all his guests, could drink in a lifetime. Father hoards the things that mean the most to him, exotic foods, drink… and money.”
Don said, “Surprise me.”
She took down a long bottle. “This is a stone-age Metaxa.” It was sealed. She took up a small bar knife, cut away the lead shielding of the cork, then took up a corkscrew. Alicia Demming had opened bottles before.
Don had never seen a real cork before he had met Demming. They were a thing of the past.
“What’s Metaxa?” he said.
“Greek brandy. When it’s very old, it’s as good a brandy as there is. Quite different from French cognac, though.”
She half filled two snifter glasses for them. It was a rugged charge.
They took the drinks back to a couch and seated themselves comfortably, about two feet from each other.
Don sipped at the brandy. He had sampled some of the best guzzle in the world in the past couple of weeks. It hadn’t made him blase1.
He said easily, “You don’t particularly like your father, do you?”
She said, “I don’t believe I know anybody that does.” And then, after a sip at her Greek brandy, “What in the world are you doing, working with him and that vicious Max Rostoff?”
So. She wasn’t in on the secret. And he had to assume that her mother wasn’t either. Without doubt, the two tycoons were keeping every one in the dark, so far as the real nature of Don’s decoration was concerned. Which was obviously good sense. He felt that it behooved him to be careful now.
He said, “I suppose that my run-in with the Kraden cruiser made me see the light clearer than I ever had before. I’ve come to the conclusion that the only chance the human race has is to unite as never before in the face of a common foe.”
“Cheers,” she said, as she lifted her glass, and he didn’t know if there was an element of sarcasm there or not. “But what’s all this got to do with my father and Max Rostoff?”
He said carefully, “Probably our single biggest need is for an abundant supply of uranium for our space fleet. Your father and Rostoff are two of the wealthiest men in the solar system. It will need that kind of wealth to amalgamate all efforts to exploit the pitchblende and other sources of uranium in the satellites.”
She yawned. “What does father get out of it? I’ve never seen him go into anything that didn’t net one hundred percent a year.”
Don said, still carefully, “Your father will, of course, realize dividends. But that’s the socioeconomic system we live under. Someone is going to make a good deal of money. Why shouldn’t it be him? He’s a competent businessman with a huge staff to help him.”
She said softly, “What do you get out of it, Don?”
“Nothing.”
She looked at him skeptically. “How do you mean?”
“I own no stock. I receive no salary. My efforts are voluntary.” That was telling her.
“I see,” she said. “Why?”
This had to be good and, besides, he suspected that he was going to have to tell the story over and over again in the coming months and years. He had better get it down pat.
He said, “So far as I am concerned, Alicia, I died out there. There was no reason for me to expect to continue living. There wasn’t a chance in the world that I’d survive. But I did. I feel that I am living on borrowed time. And I expect to devote the rest of my life, borrowed as it is, to defeating the Kradens.” Once, again, that was laying it on the line sincerely.
Without expression, she finished her drink and said, “You mentioned a busy day tomorrow, shouldn’t you be getting to bed?”
He put his own glass down. “I suppose so. Where is the bedroom?”
She said, “Over here,” and led the way to a door. Even as she walked, she reached up to undo the shoulder strap of her golden gown.
Don blinked but said, “If you don’t like your father, why do you live here?”
“I don’t. I spend almost all of my time abroad. I came back to attend my mother’s fifty-fifth birthday. That’s when I met you, before. Then, after your defeat of the Kraden, father dropped the information that you would be returning to see him. So I stayed on.”
“Why?” he said.
“Because I wanted to go to bed with you,” she told him, letting her dress drop to her waist, even as she entered the bedroom.
That set back even Don Mathers.
And for more reasons than one. Among other things, he suspected that an operator such as Lawrence Demming would have even visitors’ rooms in his home bugged.
He said, virtuously, though his mouth was dry at the revealing of the upper portion of her fabulous body, “Look, I’m a guest in your father’s home. What would he think of my seducing his daughter?”
She turned to face him and her expression was mocking. “But you bear the Galactic Medal of Honor.”
He let air out of his lungs.
“And, besides,” she said, still mockingly, “who’s seducing whom?”
XII
When they awoke the next morning, she turned to him and said, “Would you consider marrying me?”
He stared over at her. “What?”
“I said, would you consider marrying me?”
“It never occurred to me. Why would someone in your position want to?”
She put her slim hands behind her head and stared up at the ceiling. “Why not? You’re nice looking and possibly the most eligible young man in the Solar System. You’re good in bed and… I like you.”
“And you’re one of the richest heiresses going. How come you haven’t already married? Surely you must have had a lot of opportunity.”
“Because I’m one of the richest heiresses in the system. Do you realize what that means? Half of the young men I meet would like to marry me for my money. The other half would like to marry me because they are already rich but would like to merge their fortune with mine and emerge possibly the most financially powerful magnate in the solar system. I never meet a man I don’t suspect of one of those two alternatives.”
“Why me?” Don Mathers was bewildered.
“Because you have proven that you have no interest in money. If you had you wouldn’t be contributing your efforts voluntarily, without even pay, to what will possibly be the largest single corporation in the system. I will know, if you marry me, that it is because you love me and want me—no other motivation.”
Don remained silent for a long moment. This was one for the book. It’d certainly be a joke on old Demming if he did marry the girl. The bastard had squeezed Don out of the stock ownership.
She misunderstood his silence and said, a shy quality there that didn’t go with her usual aristocratic aloofness, “I’m not pressing you. I realize that you’ve got to think it over. You hardly know me and you’ve already mentioned that it has only been a couple of months since your engagement was broken. And you must remember that very likely she now regrets it, since you are the toast of the race.”
That hadn’t occurred to Don Mathers. That Dian Keramikou might now be seeing him in a new light. Now that he did think about it, he realized that very possibly, there on Callisto, Dian was having people ask for her autograph, in view of the fact that she had once been engaged to him. He almost laughed.
He swung his legs over the side of the bed to the floor and sat up. He had to play this very earnestly now, no
