Keene had noticed that nearly all the Kronians around the room were sitting. “Is that how you’re finding it?” he asked Polli.
“Also, it is bewildering,” she told him. “Already I have seen more human beings than in all the rest of my life put together. And I still get attacks of . . . What is it when you fear going outside?”
“Agoraphobia?”
“Yes, that is right. We trained for the gravity, but it doesn’t really prepare you for it. But the brilliance of the daylight is the most astounding. Nothing on screens can come close. But then, at night you have hardly any stars.”
Thorel went to collect some more arrivals from Gallian, and Polli took Keene around to meet more of the guests. Besides other Americans, he was introduced to more Japanese, two Russians, and one each German, Chinese, Brazilian, and Australian. Sariena saw him from across the room and acknowledged with a wave. While still tall by Earth standards, she was smaller than average for the Kronian group. Keene remembered her as saying that she had gone to Saturn as a child, with most of her rapid-growth and developmental years completed. The younger ones, born to the environments of Saturn’s moons or the low-g orbiting habitats, were uniformly one to two feet taller.
The word went around that one of the space crew from “that thing last Friday” was present, “The one who was on the news this evening—didn’t you see it? That’s him over there,” and Keene found himself much in demand.
“Do you really think it has a future—foreseeably, in the practical sense?” one of the Americans asked dubiously. He was a director of Chase Manhattan, it turned out. “Where’s the payoff? What can you bring from out there that we don’t have already, and cheaper?”
“It iss interesting zat your ship can connect viss der UN shuttle zat brings you down,” Keene overheard the German saying to one of the Kronians, who had a blotchy face and was sneezing intermittently. “Do you build to der same mechanical mating specifications zat you exchange maybe, ja?”
Everything inside Keene wanted to lean in and murmur, Ve haff vayss of making it dock. But he behaved himself, bit his tongue, and refrained.
Gallian appeared again and sought him out, accompanied by a man called Druche from an office of the Defense Department that dealt with space matters, whom Keene had met before on one or two occasions. “This is the man you should have building spaceships for you,” Gallian told him. “Landen understands how long-range systems have to work. Lan, you would appreciate a real spaceship. Before we go back to Saturn, we must show you the Osiris.”
Keene blinked at him, surprised. “Are you serious?”
“I don’t play jokes on my friends. We’ll sort out something for you, don’t worry. Make sure you talk to me later about it,” Gallian told him.
Gallian and Druche moved on, and Keene was promptly buttonholed by three more Japanese who seemed to be together. “Who are the other companies partnering Amspace?” the one who appeared to be the senior asked when they had been talking for a few minutes. “We could be interested in discussing further funding. How can we get in touch with the correct people?”
Keene mentioned Marvin Curtiss and offered to arrange an introduction. The Japanese seemed pleased. As Keene detached himself, Cavan drifted by, nursing a glass. “Just doing my job, you see,” he murmured. ” `Pump them when they don’t suspect it,’ is what I was told. A tacky world we live in, Landen. Tacky world.” And then he was gone again.
Before anyone else could pounce on him, Keene made his way over to Sariena. They had managed to exchange barely a few words so far. She was sitting on the arm of one of the couches, still managing to do justice to the unpretentious but stylish dress that she was wearing—black and sleeveless, with a high, oriental-style neck and just the right touch of trim—but closer he could see that weariness was beginning to show. A slim woman in a light green dress, with graying hair tied high, was standing talking to her. Keene remembered her being introduced earlier as with the Smithsonian but couldn’t recall her name. Sariena smiled as he approached.