25
Weekends were quiet for Dekker DeWoe. Half the students would be gone, mostly to the fleshpots of Denver, and the rest studying frantically to try to keep up. Dekker was one of the studying ones, but not particularly frantic: the next part of Phase Two was communications hardware, the sort of thing they would be using in a spotter ship, or for that matter anywhere in the Oort project's control system. Dekker did not need a great deal of study for that—after all, he'd been using very similar comm-sets on the Martian airships.
So he allowed himself to take time off—not to do anything in particular; actually to do nothing at all, or as close to nothing as a healthy and active young Martian ever could. He watched newscasts until they got too repulsive: The Khalistan secessionists had given up, but now there was some other trouble in a place called Brazil. And the markets were unstable again. He roamed around the campus, strengthening his new legs and breathing the sweet mountain air: wonderful grass growing, wonderful flowers. Wonderful insects, even, buzzing from plant to plant; this place was so full of life. He chatted with his classmates still on campus at their leisurely weekend meals. He recorded a long, affectionate letter to his mother. He drowsed, and slept late, and listened to music, and was well content.
For Dekker DeWoe on that weekend his worries seemed far away. Ven Kupferfeld offered the possibility of future pleasures, maybe—Dekker did not allow himself to count on anything with Earthies, especially Earthie women. The questionable way Dekker had got into the training course dwindled in his memory; surely it could not matter anymore as long as he continued to do well in the class work . . . and even his father's death became just another slowly mellowing pain.
He went peacefully to bed on Sunday night without any hint of insomnia. He woke only partially to hear Toro Tanabe stumbling in—of course at the last possible moment after his long weekend in town—drowsed quickly back into a pleasant dream that involved someone who looked a lot like Ven Kupferfeld—
And was suddenly jolted fully awake, startled and angry, an hour later.
It was the middle of the night. His room lights were on. A man he had never seen before was standing over him. "Up," the man snapped, jerking the covers off Dekker's body. "No, don't try to get dressed. You've got no time for that. Get your ass out here! You've got work to do, and you have to do it now."
It was an unforgivable intrusion on his personal time. He wasn't the only one who thought so, either, because furious shouting from Toro Tanabe's room told him that the Japanese was being awakened in just the same way, with even more resistance. But when Tanabe came stumbling out into the common room, wearing a silk gown of the kind he called "kimono," Dekker saw that the person with him was the psychologist woman, Rosa McCune.
Then it all became clear.
Tardily Dekker understood what was happening. The almost-forgotten warnings had come to pass. It was a surprise psychological check. On their study table was a tool kit and a model of the refrigeration unit that was part of an Augenstein. "Get busy," the woman commanded. "Strip it. Check the parts. Put it back together, and do it fast. You've got twelve minutes, and the clock's running."
At that hour of the night, without warning, that was a nasty task—especially for Toro Tanabe, who was clearly still half-drunk and wholly incompetent. Dekker had never before worked with his roommate as partners, and as he grimly began twisting at the latches with the unlocking device he hoped they never would again. His biggest problem was keeping Tanabe's fumbling fingers out of the way. He almost wished for Fez Mehdevi instead. He did wish that, at least, the two psych people would shut up, but of course they didn't. They kept a running stream of distracting chatter, with uncomplimentary references to Dekker's straining efforts to wrench apart the resisting coils and Tanabe's frequent need to clutch the side of the table for support. "At least," Tanabe moaned, "let me for Christ's sake piss first."
"You wouldn't have time to piss in the Oort, stupid," Dr. McCune snapped. "Move it! You've got seven minutes left!"
The seven minutes went faster than Dekker would have believed possible, but somehow, with minimal help from Tanabe, he got the job done. Then the woman demanded his arm for a moment while she took some blood—for what, Dekker could not guess—and then it was over. When the psych team had taken their hardware to plague some other students, Dekker and Tanabe rubbed the pinpricks where the blood had been taken from their arms and looked at each other.
"Shit," Tanabe said. It was all he needed to say. It included everything, from the indignity of being dragged out of bed in the middle of the night, through the misery of his half-drunken state, to the fear that they had failed.
"What did they want the blood for?" Dekker asked.
"What the hell do you think? Drugs," Tanabe moaned. "If they find dope in your blood you're gone. Thank God all I had this weekend was booze; they don't count that. But shit."
"I think we probably passed," Dekker offered consolingly.
"How do you know that?" Tanabe demanded, anxious to believe but afraid.
"Because they didn't tell us we failed," Dekker said. "That's the way my father told me to look at it, and he's been right so far."
The whole class had had the same treatment. "Yes," Fez Mehdevi said sadly as they began to plumb the solid-state mysteries of their communications set, "they did it to me, too. It is not pleasant, this course."
"Well," Dekker said judiciously, the light of the morning illuminating the confusion of the night, "I guess it's not such a bad idea. Testing us like that, I mean. If we ever really had to do some kind of emergency repairs out in the field there'd be worse stresses than they gave us."
"I hope to my God I never have to," Mehdevi said prayerfully. "Now, what is one to do with this transponder?"
The week went well enough for Dekker, mostly. The only failing was Ven Kupferfeld. Dekker had no doubt that there had definitely been an invitation from the woman, in fact a promise. Yet every time he found a chance to come near her she seemed reasonably friendly though entirely busy with more important concerns.
It was probably, Dekker thought, just the way Earthie women were. It had no doubt been a mistake to think that she really had any interest in him. Because he was a Martian, perhaps? No, he decided, it wasn't that, at least not this time, anyway. Ven Kupferfeld didn't appear to have any prejudice against Martians. Whenever she did seem to have a private conversation with anyone else it was as likely as not to be that other Martian (though not very Martian, anymore), Jay-John Belster. The two of them spent what Dekker considered to be an excessive amount of time talking together, away from the rest of the class.
He took consolation in the fact that he was doing well otherwise. The communications sessions were as easy for him as he had expected, and, most important, he had survived Rosa McCune's pop psych test. Two members of the class had not. Whether it was drugs or simple failure to meet standards, they were gone.
Toro Tanabe did not seem consoled. He stayed in the dorm that Friday night, looking resentful and unhappy. He didn't spend his time studying, of course. That would have been too much of a change; but he retired to his room early. He stayed on campus all that day, too, but that night he approached Dekker gloomily. "I must ask a favor. I do not think I did well for myself this week," he announced.
"You didn't get washed out," Dekker pointed out.
"Yes, but there is a problem. I do not want to spend all of my weekend in this boring place, and I cannot afford to risk another—situation. I almost did not get back last Sunday, you know."
"I didn't know."
"Well, it is true. I had been drinking, and the taxi driver was not helpful in returning me to the dorm."
Dekker waited, aware that more was coming. It took Tanabe a moment to get to it. "What I would like," he said, sounding uncharacteristically apologetic, "is for you to accompany me to Danktown tomorrow. Just for the day. I did not think I should allow myself the entire weekend. Oh, do not worry about the money; I will pay the fare. I will even see that you get something to eat, even some drinks, if you wish. But I wish you to make certain that I am back by midnight at the latest. I may not wish to go, but you must insist. I think that what happened last Sunday night was a warning."
"What are you worried about? I thought with your grades you were in solid."
"Nothing," said Tanabe mournfully, "is 'solid' here. I sometimes wish I had listened to my father. Anyway, will you make sure I am on the last bus, if possible, or a taxi at least? Then let us get some sleep and make an early start."
Right after breakfast they took the bus down to the city, Tanabe paying both fares as promised, and Dekker discovered that Denver when you had money to spend—even someone else's money—was a whole other place than Denver when you didn't. Tanabe hailed a taxi, flashed his gold amulet, and gave the driver an address.
It was a church. Dekker stared up at the huge marble edifice as their taxi drew up before it. "I didn't know you were, well, a Christian," he said while Tanabe was paying the driver.
"Christian? Of course I am not a Christian," Tanabe said indignantly. "A church is an excellent place to meet women, and I have been told there are many attractive ones here." He checked his watch, then nodded in satisfaction. "The morning service will be ending now, and we will simply drink coffee and mingle."
Dekker had never been in a church before. He looked around curiously as they entered an anteroom banked with flowers. When he peered through the open double doors into the church itself he was fascinated to see nearly a hundred male and female Earthies, in their best clothes, standing around to drink coffee and chat with each other.
"Wait," Tanabe said. "Before we go in, we must conform to the mores of the community." He paused at a table in the hall and picked out plastic name badges. He handed one to Dekker. "Put 'Mars' after your name," he ordered, carefully lettering out his own.
"Why? They can see I'm a Martian, can't they?"
"Remind them," Tanabe advised. "I am told that people in churches like foreigners. If we are lucky we may have to beat the women off with a stick."
But it didn't happen that way. There were plenty of Earthie women in the church, but not many of them very young and none who seemed interested in anything beyond a comment on the weather. After his second polite rebuff, Tanabe had an idea. "Watch what I do," he ordered, and went up to a man in flowing robes. "I would like to make a contribution to your church," he said, Dekker interestedly close behind.
"That's very kind of you, Mr.—Tanabe," the minister said, peering at Toro's badge.
"Quite a large one, perhaps," Tanabe added, glancing around to be sure he was observed. Indeed, a good-looking woman standing near the minister was nodding approvingly.
"Wonderful," the minister said. "Elsie? Will you show Mr. Tanabe to the collections register?" And the woman came smiling forward to lead Tanabe—who gave Dekker a complacent wink as he departed—to donate his money. But he was back in five minutes, looking ruffled.
"That cost me twenty cues, and the woman is married to the priest!" he complained to Dekker. "That is scandalous, isn't it? I thought priests did not marry."
"Some do, I guess," Dekker said consolingly.
Tanabe scowled. "This is not a success. I think it may be because you are with me. Perhaps they do not like all foreigners equally, after all. Come, let us get out of this place. At least we can get something to eat."
So, sulkily, Tanabe took Dekker to a downtown hotel for what he called "brunch." That was a whole new experience for Dekker, too. The hotel lobby was more like a cathedral than the church they had just left, and the restaurant almost as ornate. And the food!—Dekker had never seen anything like the counters loaded with hot pots and trays of fruits, crisp salads, pastries, breads of all descriptions. The closest he had ever come was at breakfast on the Ngemba farm or in that dim childhood memory of Annetta Cauchy's party in Sunpoint City, when the first comet struck—but this was a hundred times more opulent than either.
Not, however, more successful for Toro Tanabe. Here, too, all the potentially interesting women seemed to be with men they found interesting. The few who were breakfasting alone or with other women did not respond to Tanabe's overtures.
He was scowling again when he returned to where Dekker was experimentally trying out his first eggs Benedict. "Tell me, DeWoe," he said, "have you had success with women here on Earth?"
"Some," Dekker said, thinking of Sheila in the Masai hut.
"No, that Cresti Amman does not count," Tanabe said, obviously having misread that situation. "After all, she was a Martian, too, wasn't she?" He peered at Dekker's plate, and added, "That looks good. Get me some."
If there was anything Dekker DeWoe had learned on Earth, it was that the person who paid out the cues was the person who gave the orders. He didn't particularly mind, but by the time he got back to the table with Tanabe's own order of eggs Benedict his were cold and Tanabe was staring at his pocket screen angrily.
"What's the matter?" Dekker asked.
Tanabe, with his mouth full of poached eggs and sauce, said, "I have lost on the lottery again. It is nothing."
Dekker laughed. "That's the point of a lottery, isn't it? So practically everybody loses?"
"Don't you gamble on Mars?"
"No. Not much, anyway, and not lotteries. Some of the old people play cards."
"No, no. Really gamble. So that if you hit a winner you get really rich."
Dekker tried not to laugh anymore. "If a Martian got rich," he explained, "what would he spend the money on?"
"Why—luxuries! Things from Earth!"
Dekker shook his head. It was too much trouble to explain that no Martian lottery was likely to pay off in Earth cues, and if it did no Martian really wanted to give Earth any more money than was essential to survival. "How do you do it?" he asked, more out of politeness than interest, and then regretted it. Because Toro Tanabe explained in great detail. There was a lottery every week, he informed Dekker; you picked ten numbers from zero to ninety-nine, and then there would be a drawing and if you got all ten right you would win billions.
"You mean really billions?" Dekker asked, impressed.
"Well—if you don't have to share it, anyway," the Japanese conceded. "Sometimes a lot of people get the same winning numbers, and then you have to divide the profits with them. But I have a system. See, all numbers have the same chance of winning, but the payoff is bigger on some than it is on others."
Dekker frowned. "Why?"
"Because," Tanabe explained, happy to show his superior insights, "a lot of people bet particular numbers. Their birthday. Or their girlfriend's birthday, or their anniversary. But very often the numbers they pick will be from dates, and so there's a heavy play on one through twelve for the months, and one through thirty-one, for the days. Then a lot of people like to bet on numbers with a seven in them—they think seven is a lucky number—and a lot who like double numbers, especially seventy-seven, and then you always get a big play on the sexy numbers, like sixty-nine." He paused to wipe some sauce off his pocketscreen and began chewing again.
"What's sexy about the number sixty-nine?" Dekker asked, curious.
The Japanese looked at him. Then he shook his head. "Never mind, DeWoe. But that's part of my system: I stay off the heavily played numbers. So my chances of winning are just as good with my numbers as anybody else's—you can sum up the chances—"
He hit keys, and the screen displayed a series of fractions:
1/16 x 1/11 x 4/49 x 7/97 x 1/16 x 1/19 x 2/47 x 1/31 x 1/46 x 1/91 = .000,000,000,000,057,142
"That's the chance of any random ten numbers winning—about six in a hundred trillion or so. But if you play the same numbers as other people do you have to split the prize too many ways." He fixed Dekker with a look. "I don't like to split," he said.
Dekker tried not to pass judgment. He only said, "I thought you were rich already, Tanabe."
"But I am, of course."
"Then why—?"
Tanabe was laughing at him now. "Oh, DeWoe," he wheezed, "you Martians are so quaint. There is no such thing as enough money, don't you know that?" And then, sobering, "In any case, nothing is sure. The market is fickle, DeWoe. Many people who were as rich as we are are now as poor as—as a Martian, even. Almost. It is true that my father has rid himself of most of his Oort securities, but who knows if even the farm habitats will succeed?"
"Unless they get a comet," Dekker suggested.
"Or even if they do get a comet. They are an untried technology, and who knows what might go wrong? But, Dekker, please, remember that what I said to you was indiscreet. It is a confidence."
"Who would I tell?"
"No one, I hope." Tanabe gazed sadly at the empty plates before him, then around the room. He brightened. "Ah, some new women have arrived. Let me see if luck is in."
But it wasn't, and when he came back he said, "This place is not useful, either, and if I am going to have female company I do not want to waste any more time. I am leaving."
"All right," Dekker said. "Where are we going next?"
Tanabe shook his head. "We aren't going anywhere. I am going alone. I do not have time to play these games with these annoying American women this weekend, so I guess I'll have to pay for it," he said sulkily, "and I'm not paying for you."
"Pay for what?" Dekker asked, who had never imagined that prostitution existed outside of a Masai village. He stared incredulously as Tanabe explained.
"So you find something to do for a few hours," Tanabe finished. "Go to a museum or something, if you like. Then meet me where I will be having dinner—it is called Turly's, down on the Strip; that's where some of the people from the base will be. It's a salaryman sort of place," he said, with a faint lip curl, "but the Americans like that kind of thing. And we'll have a few drinks, and then you can take me back."
So there was Dekker, alone again in Danktown.
He was under no obligations to follow Tanabe's orders, of course. Also of course, he had no more attractive ideas. He knew no one in Denver—not counting Marcus, that was. For a moment he thought of trying to find the tutor, if only to talk to the only other person anywhere near who had ever known his father. But there was nothing appealing about seeing Marcus.
There was also the question of money.
Dekker's slim savings from his stipend would not carry him very far in the big city. When, for lack of a better idea, he did as Tanabe had ordered, he found that even museums weren't free. Just to enter the art museum and the planetarium cost more than he wanted to spend from his slender credit line. Still, he comforted himself, he need not worry about buying meals. He still had a full stomach from the lavish brunch. And promised himself dinner would be even more lavish.
And tried not to think of the sexual adventures Tanabe would be having while he himself was gazing at centuries-old paintings.
The planetarium was nice, though the exhibits of Mars were sadly out of date, and the modern-art museums, if not attractive, were certainly curious. After the last display of interactive holo art Dekker had a severe case of museum feet. Or legs—or, actually, museum body, all of it, because everything from the midriff to his toes was complaining about the extra work he had given it.
He sat in a square, puzzling over a map of the city of Denver. He squinted at the sky, trying to decide which way was north, but there was not much there to help him. The sun was out of sight behind clouds. Under the clouds there was a steady procession of cargo-carrying heli-blimps, sliding down toward the port of Denver, dodging among the thickening clouds; that was some help, because he found the port on the map.
So to get to the place where he was to join Tanabe he would have to go north from here, he concluded; and, yes, there seemed to be a bus line that went in the right direction to find the "salaryman" place—whatever a salaryman place was—where he would meet Toro Tanabe.
It was early, of course. But it wasn't a lot of fun to be sitting there. He tried to interest himself in the nonhuman fauna of Earth, like the insects—there weren't any insects flying around on Mars, and who knew which ones were likely to bite?—and the pigeons. He tossed the pigeons some crumbs from the roll he had filched at the brunch, and then regretted it. He was definitely getting hungry.
Dekker stared at the traffic around the square. It was a weekend, wasn't it? So why were all these people driving these hydrocars around, with a plume of steam coming out of each exhaust? Didn't Earthies ever walk? Or stay home? The exhausts were saturating the air, he thought . . .
And then perceived that—oh, God yes, of course—the moisture that was dampening his clothing was no longer just the vehicle exhausts that justified Danktown's name. It had begun to rain again.
Earthie buses didn't ever seem to go just where they were pledged to go. It took a change, and a long ride in a second bus, and then the stop was blocks from Turly's, the rain still coming down. By the time Dekker finally reached the restaurant he was both drenched and late.
"Why couldn't you get here on time?" Tanabe grumbled, looking around irritably when Dekker touched his shoulder. "We've already eaten almost everything we ordered. I don't know if anything's left, but you can see what you can find." He started to turn back to the dark-skinned Earthie man he was talking to, then thought of another complaint to make to Dekker. He said accusingly, "Why are you so wet? You should have bought yourself a raincoat, or at least an umbrella."
"Sorry," Dekker said flatly, meaning to say that he had not really got used to a planet where sometimes it was blisteringly hot enough to make a Martian sweat, and often freezingly cold enough to make you wish for furred boots and gloves, and all too often wet. Whoever thought of supplying himself with so many different kinds of clothing?
Tanabe blinked at his tone, then shrugged. "Sit down somewhere," he said testily. "I suppose you know everybody here."
"No, I don't," Dekker said, but Tanabe had already returned his attention to the dark-skinned man. The man was from the class ahead of their own, and Dekker vaguely recalled that he came from somewhere in Africa—not Kenya, which at least would have given Dekker something to talk to him about, but from some other African place called something like Upper Volta. Anyway, it appeared that the two of them were busy comparing notes on their sexual adventures of the afternoon, in which Dekker could not compete.
He found an empty space farther down the table and sat down. The vision of a lavish dinner evaporated from his mind; whatever food the people from the training center had ordered, its remnants were sparse and unattractive. Still, it was possible to drink, at least. Dekker located a glass that seemed to be clean, and poured himself beer from a pitcher in the middle of the table. He sipped it, looking with distaste at the remains of one of the things they called "pizza" on the table, cold and gluey.
"Are you hungry?" a woman's voice asked him.
He turned to see Ven Kupferfeld looking down at him.
"Yes," he said simply.
"You looked that way. There's a free lunch over there—" she waved to the end of the room, almost obscured in smoke and fug. "You're cold, too, aren't you?" He nodded, discovering it was true.
"Well, you'd better borrow my sweater," she told him, untying the sleeves she had wrapped around her waist. She herself couldn't have felt cold at all, Dekker thought. She certainly wasn't dressed for warmth, because all she was wearing was a skimpy halter top and a skirt that scarcely covered her hips. "You people get sick pretty easily, you know," she went on.
"We people don't," he corrected her, "if we've had all our immunizations, and I have." Still, the baggy sweater felt agreeably warm on his chilled body—it must have been immense on her—not to mention that as he pulled it over his head he caught a charming, compelling scent of Ven Kupferfeld.
Unfortunately, that train of thought led nowhere. As soon as her errand of mercy was done she had left him to resume an intense, low-voiced discussion with some male student Dekker didn't know. Dekker regarded the table without pleasure. It smelled of spilled beer and tobacco smoke, which made him feel queasy without diminishing his hunger. He got up and walked over to explore the "free lunch." It turned out to be little more attractive than the revolting cold pizza; there was nothing on the counter but sandwich materials and strange-looking killed-animal pastes spread on crackers. Dekker studied it dispiritedly, mourning for the lavish displays at the brunch; this was no substitute.
It occurred to him to wonder what he was doing in this place. Tanabe showed no interest in him. It appeared that the only reason for being there was to get drunk, and Dekker had good family reasons for not wanting to do that. It would have been more interesting if he had had Ven Kupferfeld to talk to, but she hadn't been encouraging. Most of the people in the bar were unfamiliar, or busy talking to somebody else. He saw Jay-John Belster at the bar, talking to another Martian. Then Dekker looked again to make sure, for, surprisingly, the other man wasn't a trainee. It was unmistakably Dekker's former tutor, Marcus Hagland. Belster looked his way, but Dekker turned away.
As Dekker was making a sandwich out of fatty slices of killed-animal and soggy bread Belster came over. "Hi," he said, picking up a piece of the stuff, folding it and jamming it into his mouth.
"Hi," Dekker said in return. "I didn't know you knew Marcus Hagland."
"Marcus? That his name? I don't really know him; he just hangs around here. I think he used to be a trainee, but they say the corporation threw him out for cheating." He munched thoughtfully, then added, "Your buddy Tanabe's getting really sloshed."
"It's his business," Dekker said shortly, though what Belster said was true enough. The Japanese was flushed and sweating, and Dekker observed that he had switched from beer to Scotch.
Belster chewed and swallowed. "Doesn't that make it yours? I thought you were going to be his nursemaid, getting him back to base?"
Dekker didn't answer. Belster was a great disappointment to him—considering how few fellow Martians there were in the training group, they should have been friends. But the man couldn't help being offensive, it seemed. "Is there anything to drink here but alcohol?" he demanded.
"Soft drinks, probably," Belster said, "but you'll have to pay for them. Listen. I hear your mother's a big shot back home."
"She's a representative to the Commons, if that's what you mean."
Belster gave a short, sharp laugh. "Fucking Commons. They've really screwed things up, trying to save a few cues to please the Earthies."
"My mother works real hard for Mars," Dekker said stiffly.
"Oh, sure she does. Only she's on the Bonds commission, isn't she? And they're the ones who got me fired, you know."
"Fired from what?" Dekker asked in surprise.
"I was working for the trade delegation here—not a bad job, you know? Then they started that damn parliamentary commission, and they started firing people left and right—cutting expenses."
"But they had to cut back! The debt was simply getting out of hand—"
"I know all about the damn debt," Belster growled. "All I'm saying is, I'd still be working in San Francisco right now if your mother's commission hadn't come along." He looked sulkily at Dekker, then conceded, "Not your fault, I guess." He jerked a thumb at Tanabe. "He's the bad guy here, not you or me. His father's got big money in the farm habitats. Why do you hang around with him?"
"I didn't pick him. They gave him to me for a roommate," Dekker said, then added more honestly, "Anyway, today he invited me to come down to Denver with him. I couldn't afford it on my own."
"Sure he invited you," the Martian agreed. "Why wouldn't he? The Japs've got all the money, them and the Russians and all. And it doesn't look to me as though he's being really generous with his invitation." He glared at Tanabe with undisguised loathing. Without taking his eyes off the Japanese he said to Dekker, "Wouldn't you like to take it all away from them?"
"I suppose so, I guess," Dekker said, not understanding, but also not—quite—willing to break off the conversation with this unpleasant person who seemed at least to be trying to be less so. "But that's just what we're going to do anyway, Belster, isn't it? When the project begins to show results, and Mars has its own atmosphere and we can start developing the planet—"
"I don't mean fifty years from now, for God's sake. I mean now."
Dekker shrugged. It seemed as though Belster was trying to get at something, but Dekker could not see the point. "Supposing you're right, how would we go about doing that?"
Belster blinked at him with a curious expression. "Maybe there's ways," he said. "See you later." And he left Dekker alone again.
The trouble with being a guest was that you couldn't leave until your host wanted to go. Dekker was not enjoying himself. Everyone else at the table seemed to be settled there for life, wrangling and arguing in ways that struck him as perilously close to outright affront. It didn't surprise Dekker that the voices were getting more quarrelsome. There had been a lot of alcohol already, and more coming all the time. Although Dekker had figured out that drunkenness was the tolerated Earthie escape from the imposed regime of at least keeping your hostilities to yourself, if you couldn't avoid feeling them, he wondered how much farther some of these people could go before the Peacekeepers came in.
Now that he had dried off, the place was unpleasantly warm, too. He pulled the sweater off and tied it around his waist, looking around the room. It was more crowded then ever, though he could not see Marcus Hagland anywhere. That was just as well, he thought, and thought resentfully again that there was no good reason for him to be here. There was no one he particularly wanted to talk to in the room but, maybe, Ven Kupferfeld, and she was busily head to head with another man again.
Maybe, Dekker thought, there wasn't any good reason for him to be on Earth at all. To help his planet, sure. But if the whole Oort project was as shaky as everybody seemed to think, then it might easily happen that he'd get through the course just in time to find that there were no jobs. Then what about his career?
Then, for that matter, what about Mars?
He didn't like that thought. Lacking anything better to do, he headed for the free lunch again.
There wasn't much left of it. As he was trying to pick out enough scraps to make another sandwich, someone bumped into him.
"Sorry," she said, and as he turned he saw it was the female instructor he had seen talking with Liselotte Durch.
"That's all right," he said, and began to turn back to his sandwich when she put out her hand to touch his arm.
"Wait a minute," she said. "I know you."
"You've probably seen me around. I'm a trainee. My name's Dekker DeWoe."
"I know you're a trainee," she said impatiently. "I don't mean that. I mean you look a little bit like—oh, my God," she said, "you're the Martian kid, aren't you?"
He stared at her, then memory flooded back. "From Sunpoint City, yes," he said. "And you're—you're the one who had the party, just before the first impact," he said to the grown-up Annetta Cauchy.
She hadn't changed much. Oh, she had certainly filled out: The budding breasts were now fully adult, and she was wearing more makeup than she had ventured at her parents' party. But not enough, Dekker saw critically, to hide the spiderweb of broken blood vessels around the eyes. Annetta Cauchy had been through an explosive decompression at some time.
There was one significant change: Her name wasn't Cauchy anymore. It had become Bancroft. "That was my ex-husband," she explained. "I dumped him long ago—no, that's not true. He was the one who dumped me, when he found out I wasn't going to inherit a few million cues. I suppose I kept his name to spite him."
He was astonished to find out how short she was, at least twenty centimeters less than himself. When she was standing with Liselotte Durch she had been at instructor height on the teacher's platform, elevated above the students. At close range he could look right down at the top of her head. She wore an oddly placed barrette, high on the left side, pulling her hair forward to fall over her left shoulder. But the barrette had slipped a little, taking some of the hair with it, and under it he caught a glimpse of a ragged white scar, six or seven centimeters long.
She saw what he was looking at and reached up to touch the barrette. "Souvenir of Station Two," she told him.
"Ah," he said, nodding. "One of the co-Mars orbitals. I'm hoping to go out to the Oort itself, actually."
"Sure you are. All you recruits think that's the only place to be, but without the co-Mars controls how would you ever get the comets onto the planet?" She smiled and shook her head. "Anyway, we had a docking problem and my head got in the way, so that's where I got these little mementos. Station Two was okay, though. I was out there for a year, until they sent me back. Not for the accident. Medical problem," she added, though he hadn't asked. "Physical medical, none of that psychological crap."
"I didn't say anything," Dekker said.
"Well," she said, almost apologetically, "I know you didn't, but I get a little sensitive because there's all that talk around about people cracking up in the stations. I wasn't one of them. Anyway, it's nice to see you again. How do you like the Earth?"
"It's fine," he said flatly, poking around the remnants of his sandwich.
She studied him quizzically, but all she did was ask, "What are you eating that crap for? Oh, wait a minute. Are you hungry?"
"Do you think I'd be eating this if I weren't?"
She grinned suddenly. "I could stand something, too. Come on over here; do you like steak?"
He held back. "I can't afford steak," he said.
"Hell, neither can I, but we're not going to pay for it." She tugged him over to the bar. "Two cheese steaks and a couple of bottles of decent beer," she ordered, "and put them on the tab for that guy over there." She was pointing at Tanabe. Then she turned to Dekker. "So you're going to help straighten out your planet?"
He wasn't prepared to joke about it, even for a free meal. He just shrugged. "Oh," she said, "I shouldn't kid you. I know what it means to you."
"And to you?"
"You mean you want to know what I'm doing in the program?" She thought for a moment. "Partly I signed up because the damn Oort thing just about wiped Daddy out when it went sour—he's still holding on to those bonds, but that's just because he can't afford to take the loss if he sells them. Partly because, I guess, I did get affected by your people when I was there as a kid. You Martians are all crazy, sure. Mars isn't worth all this trouble. But I have to admire you, a little." Their orders arrived and she looked at them coldly. "When I think of the way we used to eat then—Oh, well, Dekker, we live and we learn, don't we? Tell me, are you any relation to this Martian senator that's getting in the news all the time?"
He hadn't realized that Gerti DeWoe was getting so famous, but he nodded. "My mother."
She stared at him, then nodded. "Oh, sure. I remember her. She was the one who called my parents after that party and bawled them out for getting her kid drunk. . . . But that was a neat time, Dekker, wasn't it? I mean that whole night, not just the party but the fireworks and all, watching that first comet splash down? I never forgot it. And then what did you do after I came back to Earth?"
"Grew up," he said, smiling. But she wanted to hear details; and so, as a matter of fact, did he.
And actually, Dekker found as they exchanged life stories, he was beginning to enjoy himself. The food was a help. So was the bottled beer, imported from Japan, he saw, and an order of magnitude better than the slop in the pitchers. When Annetta finished hers she pushed the plate away, drank the last of the beer, and stood up. "I've got to get back to the base. Nice to see you. But remember, when you get into my class I'm still Teach, no familiarity."
"Sure. Thanks for the steak, too."
"I told you, I'm not paying. It goes on your Jap friend's bill."
"Tanabe? But why would he pay for it?"
"Don't worry about it, he owes me." She glanced over at the long table, where voices were rising. "It looks like it's about time to get him back, too, before he gets himself in trouble."
She was right. Dekker sighed and walked over to where Tanabe was sitting with Ven Kupferfeld and several others. He unwrapped the sweater from his waist and handed it back to her. "Thanks," he said. She glanced at him incuriously but accepted it and returned to her discussion. It was a three-way argument now, Ven as deeply engaged as either of the others. "You Western people," Tanabe was telling them, slurring his words, "you're history." He smiled affably at her, but his eyes were narrowed and hot. "You were important for a while, maybe, but never as important as you thought you were."
"Really?" she snapped. "But you Japanese must have thought we were pretty important. Considering how you copied us."
"Oh, my dear Kupferfeld," he giggled, "is that what you think? But you were such devoted missionaries, Kupferfeld. You wanted so much that everybody in the world would learn to be like you in all your little ways—it was only good manners for us to do it." He poured himself another drink. "Especially the Russians. Do you remember how that went? You were so desperate to have the Russians copy you. Yes, and the Chinese, too. You wanted them to adopt American ways—American elections and American churches and American traffic jams and, most of all, American free-enterprise business. Didn't it ever occur to you what was going to happen when the Russians and the Chinese, with all their people and all their resources, began to copy your economy? Why, they almost put Japan out of business, let alone America!"
One of the other trainees said nastily, "We were doing all right until you bastards sneaked out of the Mars deal."
"Sneaked out?" Tanabe giggled. "But we merely changed our investment portfolio a bit. Obviously the habitats were a better prospect."
"You left us holding the bag!" the man brayed.
"What a pity you did not see the situation clearly," Tanabe commiserated.
"Now we're stuck with the goddamn Martians!" the other man cried.
And from behind Dekker, Jay-John Belster rumbled, "Hey, watch what you say about Martians!"
Tanabe glared drunkenly at him. He seemed to try to struggle to his feet—almost, Dekker thought in shock, as though they were going to fight—but then he looked around the table. There weren't any friendly faces. The other trainee was as hostile as Belster, and almost as big.
Tanabe collapsed back in his chair and grinned sloppily up at Dekker DeWoe. "I think," he said, hiccuping, "that now is a good time for you to take me home."
And yet, to Dekker's surprise, when they were out in the open Tanabe straightened up. "I dislike these people very much," he muttered, no word slurred. "Here! Taxi!"
And when they were inside he pillowed his head on the corner of the seat and closed his eyes. "Wake me when we get to the base," he ordered, and was at once asleep.