“Blessings,” said Flandry in haste.
“No.” Her eyes were the least bit hazed, but they locked steadily with his. She smiled, more in tenderness than mirth. “You won’t wriggle off the hook with a joke this time, Dominic.
You gave me too much to drink, you see, an’—I mean it. A planet with you on its side has still got hope enough.”
Flandry sipped his liqueur. Suddenly the alcohol touched his own brain with its pale fires, and he thought, Why not be honest with her? She can take it. Maybe she even deserves it.
“No, Kit,” he said. “I know my class from the inside out, because it is my class and I probably wouldn’t choose another even if some miracle made me able to. But we’re hollow, and corrupt, and death has marked us for its own. In the last analysis, however we disguise it, however strenuous and hazardous and even lofty our amusements are, the only reason we can find for living is to have fun. And I’m afraid that isn’t reason enough.”
“But it is!” she cried.
“You think so,” he said, “because you’re lucky, enough to belong to a society which still has important jobs uncompleted. But we aristocrats of Terra, we enjoy life instead of enjoying what we’re doing … and there’s a cosmos of difference.
“The measure of our damnation is that every one of us with any intelligence—and there are some—every one sees the Long Night coming. We’ve grown too wise; we’ve studied a little psycho-dynamics, or perhaps only read a lot of history, and we can see that Manuel’s Empire was not a glorious resurgence. It was the Indian summer of Terran civilization. (But you’ve never seen Indian summer, I suppose. A pity: no planet has anything more beautiful and full of old magics.) Now even that short season is past. Autumn is far along; the nights are cold and the leaves are fallen and the last escaping birds call through a sky which has lost all color. And yet, we who see winter coming can also see it won’t be here till after our lifetimes … so we shiver a bit, and swear a bit, and go back to playing with a few bright dead leaves.”
He stopped. Silence grew around them. And then, from the intercom, music began again, a low orchestral piece which spoke to deep places of their awareness.
“Excuse me,” said Flandry. “I really shouldn’t have wished my sour pessimism on you.”
Her smile this time held a ghost of pity. “An’ o’ course ‘twouldn’t be debonair to show your real feelin’s, or try to find words for them.”
“Touche!” He cocked his head. “Think we could dance to that?”
“The music? Hardly. The Liebestod is background for some-thin’ else. I wonder if Chives knew.”
“Hm?” Flandry looked surprised at the girl.
“I don’t mind at all,” she whispered. “Chives is a darlin’.”
Suddenly he understood.
But the stars were chill behind her. Flandry thought of guns and dark fortresses waiting for them both. He thought of knightly honor, which would not take advantage of the helplessness which is youth—and then, with a little sadness, he decided that practical considerations were what really turned the balance for him.
He raised the cigar to his mouth and said softly, “Better drink your coffee before it gets cold, lass.”
With that the moment was safely over. He thought he saw disappointed gratitude in Kit’s hurried glance, but wasn’t sure. She turned around, gazing at the stars merely to avoid facing him for the next few seconds.
Her breath sighed outward. She sat looking at Cerulia for a whole minute. Then she stared down at her hands and said tonelessly: “Figure you’re right ’bout the Empire. But then what’s to become o’ Vixen?”
“We’ll liberate it, and squeeze a fat indemnity out of Ardazir,” said Flandry as if there were no doubt.
“Uh-uh.” She shook her head. Bitterness began to edge her voice. “Not if ’tisn’t convenient. Your Navy might decide to fight the war out where ’tis. An’ then my whole planet, my people, the little girl next door an’ her kitten, trees an’ flowers an’ birds, why, ’twill just be radioactive ash blowin’ over dead gray hills. Or maybe the Imperium will decide to compromise, an’ let Ardazir keep Vixen. Why not? What’s one planet to the Empire? A swap might, as you say, buy them peace in their own lifetimes. A few million human bein’s, that’s nothin’, write them off in red ink.” She shook her head again in a dazed way. “Why are we goin’ there, you an’ I? What are we workin’ for? Whatever we do can come to nothin’, from one stroke of a pen in some bored bureaucrat’s hand. Can’t it?”