Flandry discovered that Kit could give him a workout, when they played handball down in the hold. And her stubborn chess game defeated his swashbuckling tactics most of the time. She had a puckish humor when she wasn’t remembering her planet. Flandry would not soon forget her thumbnail impression of Vice Admiral Fenross: “A mind like a mousetrap, only he ought to let some o’ those poor little mice go.” She could play the lorr, her fingers dancing over its twelve primary strings with that touch which brings out the full ringing resonance of the secondaries; she seemed to know all the ballads from the old brave days when men were first hewing their homes out of Vixen’s wilderness, and they were good to hear.
Flandry grew slowly aware that she was the opposite of bad-looking. She just hadn’t been sculped into the monotonously aristocratic appearance of Terra’s high-born ladies. The face, half boyish, was her own, the body full and supple where it counted. He swore dismally to himself and went on a more rigorous calisthenic program.
Slowly the stars formed new patterns. There came a time when Aldebaran stood like red flame, the brightest object in all heaven. And then the needle-point of Vixen’s sun, the star named Cerulia, glistened keen and blue ahead. And Flandry turned from the viewscreen and said quietly: “Two more days to go. I think we’ll have captain’s dinner tonight.”
“Very good, sir,” said Chives. “I took it upon myself to bring along some live Maine lobster. And I trust the Liebfraumilch ’51 will be satisfactory?”
“That’s the advantage of having a Shalmuan for your batman,” remarked Flandry to Kit. “Their race has more sensitive palates than ours. They can’t go wrong on vintages.”
She smiled, but her eyes were troubled.
Flandry retired to his own cabin and an argument. He wanted to wear a peach-colored tunic with his white slacks; Chives insisted that the dark blue, with a gold sash, was more suitable. Chives won, naturally. The man wandered into the saloon, which was already laid out for a feast, and poured himself an aperitif. Music sighed from the recorder, nothing great but sweet to hear.
A footfall came lightly behind him. He turned and nearly dropped his glass. Kit was entering in a sheer black dinner gown; one veil the color of fire flickered from her waistsline. A filigree tiara crowned shining hair, and a bracelet of Old Martian silver coiled massive on her wrist.
“Great hopping electrons,” gasped Flandry. “Don’t do such things without warning! Where did the paintbrush come from to lay on the glamor that thick?”
Kit chuckled and pirouetted. “Chives,” she said. “Who else? He’s a darlin’. He brought the jew’lry along, an’ he’s been makin’ the dress at odd moments this whole trip.”
Flandry shook his head and clicked his tongue. “If Chives would accept manumission, he could set himself up in business, equipping lady spies to seduce poor officers like me. He’d own the galaxy in ten years.”
Kit blushed and said hastily: “Did he select the tape too? I always have loved Mendelssohn’s Violin Concerto.”
“Oh, is that what it is? Nice music for a sentimental occasion, anyway. My department is more the administration of drinks. I prescribe this before dinner: Ansan aurea. Essentially, it’s a light dry vermouth, but for once a non-Terran soil has improved the flavor of a Terran plant.”
She hesitated. “I don’t—I never—”
“Well, high time you began.” He did not glance at the view-screen, where Cerulia shone like steel, but they both knew there might not be many hours left for them to savor existence. She took the glass, sipped, and sighed.
“Thank you, Dominic. I’ve been missin’ out on such a lot.”
They seated themselves. “We’ll have to make that up, after this affair is over,” said Flandry. A darkening passed through him, just long enough to make him add: “However, I suspect that on the whole you’ve done better in life than I.”
“What do you mean?” Her eyes, above the glass, reflected the wine’s hue and became almost golden.
“Oh … hard to say.” His mouth twisted ruefully upward. “I’ve no romantic illusions about the frontier. I’ve seen too much of it. I’d a good deal rather loll in bed sipping my morning chocolate than bounce into the fields before dawn to cultivate the grotch or scag the thimbs or whatever dreary technicalities it is that pioneers undergo. And yet, well, I’ve no illusions about my own class either, or my own way of life. You frontier people are the healthy ones. You’ll be around—most of you—long after the Empire is a fireside legend. I envy you that.”