Doc Capek was sitting back, with his hands over his paunch, as relaxed as an angleworm. Penny was moving around, pushing straight things crooked and vice versa and fetching us drinks. She never seemed to look directly at either me or Mr. Bonforte.
I had never before experienced an election-night party; they were not like any other. There is a cozy, warm rapport of all passion spent. It really does not matter too much how the people decide; you have done your best, you are with your friends and comrades, and for a while there is no worry and no pressure despite the over-all excitement, like frosting on a cake, of the incoming returns.
I don’t know when I’ve had so good a lime.
Rog looked up, looked at me, then spoke to Mr. Bonforte. “The Continent is seesaw. The Americans are testing the water with a toe before coming in on our side; the only question is, how deep?”
“Can you make a projection, Rog?”
“Not yet. Oh, we have the popular vote but in the G.A. it could swing either way by half a dozen seats.” He stood up. “I think I had better mosey out into town.”
Properly speaking, I should have gone, as “Mr. Bonforte.” The Party leader should certainly appear at the main headquarters of the Party sometime during election night. But I had never been in headquarters, it being the sort of a buttonholing place where my impersonation might be easily breached. My “illness” had excused me from it during the campaign; tonight it was not worth the risk, so Rog would go instead, and shake hands and grin and let the keyed-up girls who had done the hard and endless paperwork throw their arms around him and weep. “Back in an hour.”
Even our little party should have been down on the lower level, to include all the office staff, especially Jimmie Washington. But it would not work, not without shutting Mr. Bonforte himself out of it. They were having their own party of course. I stood up. “Rog, I’ll go down with you and say hello to Jimmie’s harem.”
“Eh? You don’t have to, you know.”
“It’s the proper thing to do, isn’t it? And it really isn’t any trouble or risk.” I tuned to Mr. Bonforte. “How about it, sir?”
“I would appreciate it very much.”
We went down the lift and through the silent, empty private quarters and on through my office and Penny’s. Beyond her door was bedlam. A stereo receiver, moved in for the purpose, was blasting at full gain, the floor was littered, and everybody was drinking, or smoking, or both. Even Jimmie Washington was holding a drink while he listened to the returns. He was not drinking it; he neither drank nor smoked. No doubt someone had handed it to him and he had kept it. Jimmie had a fine sense of fitness.
I made the rounds, with Rog at my side, thanked Jimmie warmly and very sincerely, and apologized that I was feeling tired. “I’m going up and spread the bones, Jimmie. Make my excuses to people, will you?”
“Yes, sir. You’ve got to take care of yourself, Mr. Minister.”
I went back up while Rog went on out into the public tunnels.
Penny shushed me with a finger to her lips when I came into the upper living room. Bonforte seemed to have dropped off to sleep and the receiver was muted down. Dak still sat in front of it, filling in figures on the big sheet against Rog’s return. Capek had not moved. He nodded and raised his glass to me.
I let Penny fix me a scotch and water, then stepped out into the bubble balcony. It was night both by clock and by fact and Earth was almost full, dazzling in a Tiffany spread of stars. I searched North America and tried to pick out the little dot I had left only weeks earlier, and tried to get my emotions straight.
After a while I came back in; night on Luna is rather overpowering. Rog returned a little later and sat back down at his work sheets without speaking. I noticed that Bonforte was awake again.