His gaze lingered a little too long on the crew table as he considered the matter. A voice said, “A problem, Officer Diamond?”
He turned. Four seats down, on the other side of the table, sat an officer of the Kestrel. She was perhaps seventy years old, and she wore an orange neckerchief and a pink-and-purple sash, and there were traces of sparkle in her white hair. The Republic made a place for its eccentrics, especially when they were older and nonpolitical—maybe it made up for their system being so boring the rest of the time. The officer regarded him steadily.
“I beg your pardon,” said Tal, “but you have the advantage of me.”
The Kestrel officer grinned, showing yellow teeth and a light of mischief in her eyes. “Captain will do,” she said. “Captain Nestra.”
It would be. How did he always end up coming to people’s notice? And dammit, if the Republic would just be a little more openly hierarchical, people like her would be sitting at the head of the table and he could watch out for them.
“I’m impressed that you know my name, Captain.”
“I know the names of all my passengers. There are only sixteen of you this trip, after all. Do you have a problem? I see you watching my crew, there.”
Conversation had ceased around his immediate area. He said, “I’m curious, I suppose. I don’t mean any offense. I’m from the Three Cities; we don’t travel much among other people.”
“The Three Cities.”
“Yes.” She’d said it as though she didn’t quite believe it. Tal felt his palms starting to sweat. Luckily full-humans rarely seemed able to pick up on his emotions. “It’s on my ticket, Captain. I don’t know how you avoided seeing it, if you saw my name.”
She passed over that topic. “It must be a fascinating place, the Three Cities. Marvel of engineering, and all that.”
“Yes. I’m afraid we rather take it for granted.”
“They must feed you up there, at least—you’re not eating much here.”
He shrugged. God, she was worse than the Secret Police. Was this some kind of curse? He’d only been on board an hour!
“Are you traveling to Baret One for business?”
“Tourism. I’ve never been on a planet surface before.” She opened her mouth and he forestalled her. “It’s true it would have been a lot faster to go down to Baret Two, but we haven’t opened up official negotiations with them, and I thought it would be more discreet to do things this way.”
“You’re very thoughtful,” she said, “with your superiors, at least.”
In a second she was going to ask him how long he was booked to stay, and why. He pushed his tray in, signifying that he was finished with his lunch. “I suppose you’re right, I’m not very hungry. Tell me, Captain, does this ship have a gym? Or any area where passengers can work out?”
“Of course. Didn’t we give you a passenger map? Choris, show this gentleman where the fitness room is. And give him a map. He’s carelessly lost his own.”
Choris, a young female officer with close-cropped black hair and a prominent security badge, rose at once and accompanied Tal to the door. As they left, he heard the Captain’s voice continuing. “Well, citizens, I see they’ve cut the beer ration again. I think we all know whose fault that is….”
Somehow it was always the women who were the worst, he thought, as he lay in his bunk that night. Even Republic women, who were brought up the same as men, and ought to behave no differently. They all seemed to know something he’d never been told. As for Diamond women, there was a slight nervousness in everything they did around him, as though they didn’t know what horrifying act he might perform next. Clearly he was not giving off the right signals, but just what the right signals were was a mystery. There was some subtle range of human behavior he wasn’t getting, he’d been aware of that for years. Sex was particularly bad. The males around him all seemed to know how to proceed, but the last time he’d suggested something to a Diamond woman she’d slapped his face and her brother had almost had to be killed. Luckily Adrian had smoothed things over. And Tal had only chosen her to approach because she seemed less nervous around him. Well, at least he’d been accurate in that—she’s shown no hesitation about hitting him.
This Captain Nestra had the same terrible assurance he’d seen in other women down the line, the ones who’d troubled him the most. The fact that it wasn’t sexual didn’t help. At least, he thought it wasn’t sexual. God, who could ever be expected to know what full-humans were thinking? It wasn’t rational thought that went through their minds at all, they were in some kind of bizarre psychic attunement with the cosmos, or something equally meaningless.
He turned over in the bed. Tomorrow he would have to show up in the dining area at different times. Cyr Vesant’s contact had to be on another work schedule from the people he’d seen there today.
Besides, there was less chance of running into the Captain again.
And breakfast brought success. Sitting alone at the crew table, very early on the ship’s “day,” was a youngish, white-haired worker with skin of golden brown. Tal followed him when he left the dining area.
He vanished into a maintenance hold. Tal spent the day walking purposefully up, down, and near that corridor. His target came out again—alone—four hours later, when he returned to the dining salon. Then back to the hold, a break a couple of hours later (spent in the fitness area) and another trip to the hold. During this time only two other people
