chapter twelve
Niels Sverenssen lay propped against the pillows in his executivegrade quarters at Giordano Bruno, watching the girl dress by the vanity on the far side of the room. She was young and quite pretty, with the clear complexion and open features typical of many Americans, and her loose black hair cut an intriguing contrast against her white skin. She should use the sunray facilities provided in the gymnasium more often, he thought to himself. As with most of her sex, her superficial layer of college-applied pseudointellectualism went no deeper than the pigment in her skin; beneath it she was as facile as the rest of them-a regrettably necessary but not unpleasant diversion from the more serious side of life. “You only want my body,” they had cried indignantly down through the ages. “What else can you offer?” was his reply.
She finished buttoning her shirt and turned toward the mirror to run a comb hurriedly through her hair. “I know it’s a strange time to be leaving,” she said. “Trust me to be on early shift this morning. I’m going to be late again as it is.”
“Don’t worry about it,” Sverenssen told her, putting more concern into his voice than he felt. “First things must come first.”
She picked her jacket up off the back of a chair next to the vanity and slung it over her shoulder. “Have you got the cartridge?” she asked, turning back to face him.
Sverenssen opened the drawer of the bedside unit, reached inside, and took out a matchbook-size, computer micromemory cartridge. “Here. Remember to be careful.”
The girl walked over to him, took the cartridge and folded it inside a tissue, then slipped it into one of the pockets of her jacket. “I will. When will I see you again?”
“Today will be very busy. I’ll have to let you know.”
“Don’t make it too long.” She smiled, stooped to kiss him on the forehead, and left, closing the door softly behind her.
Professor Gregor Maffiusk, the Director of Astronomy at the Giordano Bruno observatory, was not looking pleased when she arrived in the main-dish control room ten minutes later. “You’re late again, Janet,” he grumbled as she hung her jacket in one of the closets by the door and put on her white working coat. “John had to leave in haste because he’s going to Ptolemy today, and I’ve had to cover. I’ve got a meeting in less than an hour and things to do beforehand. This situation is becoming intolerable.”
“I’m sorry, Professor,” she said. “I overslept. It won’t happen again.” She walked quickly across to the supervisory console and began going through the routine of calling up the night’s status logs with deft, practiced movements of her fingers.
Malliusk watched balefully from beside the equipment racks outside his office, trying not to notice the firm, slim lines of her body outlined by the white material of her coat and the raven black curls tumbling carelessly over her collar. “It’s that Swede again, isn’t it,” he growled before he could stop himself.
“That’s my business,” Janet said without looking up, making her voice as firm as she dared. “I’ve already said-it won’t happen again.” She compressed her mouth into a tight line and stabbed savagely at the keyboard to bring another screen of data up in front of her.
“The check correlation on 557B was not completed yesterday,” Malliusk said icily. “It was scheduled for completion by fifteen hundred.”..
Janet hesitated from what she was doing, closed her eyes momentarily, and bit her lip. “Damn!” she muttered beneath her breath, then louder, “I’ll skip break and get it done then. There’s not a lot of it left.”
“John has already completed it.”
“I’m. . . sorry. I’ll do an extra hour off his next shift to make up.,’
Malliusk scowled at her for a few seconds longer, then turned on his heel abruptly and left the control room without saying anything more.
When she had finished checking the status logs, she switched off the screen and walked over to the transmission subsystem cornmunications auxiliary processor cabinet, opened a cover panel, and inserted the cartridge that Sverenssen had given her into an empty slot. Then she moved around to the front of the system con-