the chair next to her. She shifted slightly and lifted her glass to taste her
martini while surreptitiously nudging the briefcase under the back of the booth
behind her.
Campbell frowned at his glass for a second, then sighed and smiled
condescendingly. “Well, let’s put it this way—my training in understanding the
physics of thermonuclear processes doesn’t have anything to do with when I was
born, I’m afraid. You don’t get these—” he gestured at the captain’s tracks on
his epaulets “—for knowing about birth-signs, you know.”
“You don’t?” Thelma said wonderingly. “But you have to know which way to steer
the ship. How can you do that without knowing all about stars and planets?” At
the booth behind, Drew West finished his drink, got up, and sauntered out of the
bar, carrying his jacket loosely over his arm to conceal the briefcase he was
holding.
Campbell bit his lip awkwardly. “Look, I, er . . . I don’t want to sound like a
schoolteacher or anything, but astrology and astronomy aren’t really the same
thing.”
“No, of course they’re not—everyone knows that,” Thelma agreed brightly.
“Astronomy is restricted to what you can see through telescopes, but astrology
covers a lot more because it’s revealed directly to the mind, right? I read all
about it in Thinking Woman’s Monthly Digest.”
“Er, not quite … If you want, I’ll tell you what the differences really are.
But I should warn you, you may find you have to change some ideas you might have
grown pretty fond of.”
“Oh, would you, Larry! Just imagine—a real starship officer taking all this
trouble just for me! My sister will be so mad when I tell her.”
In the men’s room outside the bar, Drew West had picked the lock of the
briefcase and begun selecting interesting papers which he passed over the
partition for Joe Fellburg to photograph in the next cubicle. Five minutes
later, when Fellburg entered the bar carrying Campbell’s briefcase inside a
false-bottomed leather portmanteau, the booth at which West had been sitting was
taken. So Fellburg edged his way through the throng and stopped partway to the
bar to count change from his pocket for the cigarette machine, in the process
putting down the portmanteau next to Thelma’s seat. The briefcase stayed behind
as Fellburg moved on, but the movement of his foot to slide it behind the chair
toward Thelma’s waiting hand was so smooth that Campbell, on the far side of the
table, didn’t even register anyone’s being nearby as he extolled the wonders of
the heavens and expounded on their mysteries.
Clarissa Eidstadt rapped the end of her pen sharply on the top of Herman
Thoring’s desk in the administrative section of Globe I to emphasize her point.
“Look, mister, I’ve got my job to do too. I’m the team’s publicity manager,
okay? That means I need to get information to the public. How am I supposed to
get information out without proper communications? So do something about it.”
Thoring held up his hands protectively. “Okay, Clarissa, I hear what you’re
telling me, and I’ll do what I can. But you have to understand I’ve got a lot of
other responsibilities and obligations to think about. This mission is important
to all kinds of other people too.” Thoring looked like a person born to carry
responsibilities and bear obligations. The tanned dome of his head reflected the
light inside a semicircle of black, frizzy hair, and his eyes looked like
poached eggs behind thick, heavy-rimmed spectacles wedged above his fleshy nose.
He was in shirt-sleeves with cuffs rolled back, vest unbuttoned, and tie-knot
slipped a couple of inches below his opened collar.
Clarissa tossed up a hand in a curt gesture of finality. “Well, if you don’t
have the authority to change anything, I’m wasting my time. I thought you were
in charge around here. Who do I talk to?”
As it was supposed to, the remark hit a sensitive spot. Thoring’s knuckles
whitened and a vein stood out on his temple. “You’re already in the right
office,” he managed indignantly. “I’m the Senior Program Director from Global
Communications Networking and have full responsibility for media liaison. It’s a