17
The nanoprocessors would take any material and transform it, atom by atom, into anything else for which they had a program. Out of their recycling came air, water, food. They could produce a complete, excellent meal, and often did according to individual choice. However, as a rule Mac-andal took just the basic ingredients and, aside from drink, made dinner for everybody. She was a gifted cook, enjoyed the work, and felt it was a service, something that lent her life some meaning. No pretense; machines lacked the personal touch that this archaic crew needed.
Certainly they did at a time of celebration. The ship’s calendar held many feasts, holy days and national days that Earth had mostly forgotten, private anniversaries, special occasions upon the voyage. Each fulfilled year of it was among them. That was by inboard time, of course. The faster Pytheas flew, the shorter a span became in relation to the galactic wheel.
“It’s getting kind of drunk out,” she remarked to Yukiko on the third of those evenings.
Having dined, folk had moved from the saloon to the spacious common room. Simulacrum panels had been raised, hiding the murals. They gave no scenes from home; it had been found that such were too likely to make an alcoholic party go somber. Patterns of light shifted and drifted, glowed and sparkled, through a violet-blue dusk. Nevertheless Hanno and Patulcius sat, goblets in hand, reminiscing about the twentieth century—the two widely sundered twentieth centuries that had been theirs. Wanderer and Svoboda revived the waltz, rotating embraced over the floor, earplugs giving Strauss to them alone; their eyes also excluded the world. Tu Shan and Aliyat danced, whooping and hand-clapping, to some livelier melody.
Kneeling as of old, Yukiko sipped at the bit of sake she was allowing herself. She smiled. “It is good to see cheer-fujness/’ she said.
“Yes, I’ve felt tension in the air,” Macandal replied. “Not that it’s gone away.”
“—poor old Sam Giannotti, he tried so hard to get a little modern physics into my head,” Hanno related slurrily. “Hell, I could barely manage a half-notion of what classical physics had been about. Made a song, I did, at last—”
Sweat darkened Tu Shan’s tunic beneath the arms and sheened on Aliyat’s bare shoulders and back.
“You should go join the fun,” Macandal said. Sang Hanno off-key:
Yukiko smiled again. “I am enjoying myself,” she said, “But why don’t you go? You were never a passive person, like me.”
“Ha, don’t you kid me. In your peculiar ways, you’re as active, as much a doer, as anybody I ever met.”
Aliyat and Tu Shan laughed into each other’s mouths. Wanderer and Svoboda circled as if through a dream.
Aliyat left her partner, approached, beckoned to Yukiko. Macandal stepped aside. The two whispered together.
Aliyat returned to Tu Shan. They left the room arm in arm.
“She asked if you’d mind, didn’t she?” Macandal inquired.
Yukiko nodded. “I don’t. I truly don’t. She surely remembered that. But it was good of her to ask.”
Macandal sighed. “His nature too, isn’t it? I’ve wondered—I’m a trifle in my own cups—don’t be offended, please, but I’ve wondered how much you really love him.”
“What is love? Among my people, most people, what counted was respect. Affection normally grew out of it.”
“Yeah.” Macandal’s gaze followed the pair still on the floor.
Yukiko winced. “Are you in pain, Corinne?”
“No, no. Nothing’s going to happen with those two. Though, as you say, it shouldn’t matter if anything did, should it?” Macandal made a laugh. “Johnnie’s a gentleman. He’ll ask me for the next dance. I can wait.”
