Si cleared his throat. “Hey,” he said, “how about letting this one be on me?”
Her eyebrows, which had been plucked and penciled to carry out her Oriental motif, rose. “Really!” she said, drawing it out.
The bartender said hurriedly, “I beg your pardon, sir. …”
The girl, her voice suddenly subtly changed, said, “Why, isn’t that a space pin?”
Si, disconcerted by the sudden reversal, said, “Yeah … sure.”
“Good Heavens, you’re a spaceman?”
“Sure.” He pointed at the lapel pin. “You can’t wear one unless you been on at least a Moon run.”
She was obviously both taken back and impressed. “Why,” she said, “you’re Seymour Pond, the pilot. I tuned in on the banquet they gave you.”
Si, carrying his glass, moved over to the stool next to her. “Call me Si,” he said. “Everybody calls me Si.”
She said, “I’m Natalie. Natalie Paskov. Just Natalie. Imagine meeting Seymour Pond. Just sitting down next to him at a bar. Just like that.”
“Si,” Si said, gratified. Holy Zoroaster, he’d never seen anything like this rarified pulchritude. Maybe on teevee, of course, one of the current sex symbols, but never in person. “Call me Si,” he said again. “I’ve been called Si so long, I don’t even know who somebody’s talking to if they say Seymour.”
“I cried when they gave you that antique watch,” she said, her tone such that it was obvious she hadn’t quite adjusted as yet to having met him.
Si Pond was surprised. “Cried?” he said. “Well, why? I was kind of bored with the whole thing. But old Doc Gubelin, I used to work under him in the Space Exploration department, he was hot for it.”
“Academician Gubelin?” she said. “You just call him Doc?”
Si was expansive. “Why, sure. In the Space Department we don’t have much time for formality. Everybody’s just Si, and Doc, and Jim. Like that. But how come you cried?”
She looked down into the drink the bartender had placed before her, as though avoiding his face. “I … I suppose it was that speech Doctor Girard-Perregaux made. There you stood, so fine and straight in your space-pilot uniform, the veteran of six exploration runs to the planets. …”
“Well,” Si said modestly, “two of my runs were only to the Moon.”
“… and he said all those things about man’s conquest of space. And the dream of the stars which man has held so long. And then the fact that you were the last of the space pilots. The last man in the whole world trained to pilot a space craft. And here you were, retiring.”
Si grunted. “Yeah. That’s all part of the Doc’s scheme to get me to take on another three runs. They’re afraid the whole department’ll be dropped by the Appropriations Committee on this here Economic Planning Board. Even if they can find some other patsy to train for the job, it’d take maybe a year before you could even send him on a Moon hop. So old man Gubelin, and Girard-Perregaux too, they’re both trying to pressure me into more trips. Otherwise they got a Space Exploration Department, with all the expense and all, but nobody to pilot their ships. It’s kind of funny, in a way. You know what one of those spaceships costs?”
“Funny?” she said. “Why, I don’t think it’s funny at all.”
Si said, “Look, how about another drink?”
Natalie Paskov said, “Oh, I’d love to have a drink with you, Mr. …”
“Si,” Si said. He motioned to the bartender with a circular twist of the hand indicating their need for two more of the same. “How come you know so much about it? You don’t meet many people who are interested in space any more. In fact, most people are almost contemptuous, like. Think it’s kind of a big boondoggle deal to help use up a lot of materials and all and keep the economy going.”
Natalie said earnestly, “Why, I’ve been a space fan all my life. I’ve read all about it. Have always known the names of all the space pilots and everything about them, ever since I was a child. I suppose you’d say I have the dream that Doctor Girard-Perregaux spoke about.”
Si chuckled. “A real buff, eh? You know, it’s kind of funny. I was never much interested in it. And I got a darn sight less interested after my first run and I found out what space cafard was.”
She frowned. “I don’t believe I know much about that.”
Sitting in the Kudos Room with the most beautiful girl to whom he had ever talked, Si could be nonchalant about the subject. “Old Gubelin keeps that angle mostly hushed up and out of the magazine and newspaper articles. Says there’s enough adverse publicity about space exploration already. But at this stage of the game when the whole ship’s crammed tight with this automatic scientific apparatus and all, there’s precious little room in the conning tower and you’re the only man aboard. The Doc says later on when ships are bigger and there’s a whole flock of people aboard, there won’t be any such thing as space cafard, but. …” Of a sudden the right side of Si Pond’s mouth began to tic and he hurriedly took up his drink and knocked it back.
He cleared his throat. “Let’s talk about some other angle. Look, how about something to eat, Natalie? I’m celebrating my retirement, like. You know, out on the town. If you’re free. …”
She put the tip of a finger to her lips, looking for the moment like a small girl rather than an ultra-sophisticate. “Supposedly, I have an appointment,” she said hesitantly.
When the mists rolled out in the morning—if it was still morning—it was to the tune of an insistent hotel chime. Si rolled over on his back and growled, “Zo-ro-as-ter, cut that out. What do you want?”
The hotel communicator said softly, “Checking-out time, sir, is at two o’clock.”
Si groaned. He couldn’t place the last of the evening at all. He didn’t remember coming back to the hotel. He couldn’t recall where he had separated from, what was her name …
