“Actually my name is Murra. I’m afraid I didn’t catch yours?”
“Hans Horeger,” the man said promptly, holding out his hand. “I’m executive officer and deputy captain-acting captain, really,” he said, with a deprecating shrug, “because old Hawkins is really pretty much past it.”
“I’m honored,” Murra said gravely. “And please do be sure to come tonight, and bring your charming friend-”
“You mean Mercy Macdonald, I suppose,” Horeger said. Murra was aware of his eyes on her, missing nothing. His study of her was discreet, which she appreciated, but also quite admiring, which she appreciated even more. “Oh, would you call her charming? I guess so, in her way-but of course next to someone like you-”
She gave him her prettiest smile. “I don’t see her here,” she remarked, looking around.
The man looked around too. “No, I guess she’s not back yet. She and your husband had to go to the sheds to look at some samples.”
She nodded. “Yes,” she said, “I rather thought they would.”
Blundy and herself, the two from the starship, Petoyne-there had to be one more, a male, to make an even number. Since the extra male would be more or less Petoyne’s escort, he needn’t be particularly attractive. Murra thought for a moment, then smiled and picked up the phone. It was answered at once. “Vorian? I know how much you wanted to meet the people from the starship. Well, if you’re free for dinner this evening-”
Of course he was. That settled, Murra gave orders and watched until she was sure the cleaner and the cooker were well started on them. Normally Murra didn’t care for hired servers. But they were absolutely necessary this night, for there would be no spending time in the kitchen for the hostess. When she was convinced they were properly doing the gruntwork they were hired for, Murra began doing the things she alone could do. She arranged the flowers she had bought prettily around the room. Then music: She selected tapes of unobtrusive strings and flutes to play in the background. Then she programmed the big wall screen with suitable background images, mostly a series of still shots from Winter Wife and other productions she and Blundy had done together, with of course the most flattering shots of herself featured. She worked as hard as the hired help, because it all had to be perfect. . . .
It was perfect, too. She was sure of that before the first guest arrived. Yet when Mercy Macdonald showed up Murra had a quick moment of doubt. The woman had managed to get herself rested and cleaned up, and she did not look quite so middle-aged any more. Indeed, Murra thought justly, she looked no older than herself. She greeted the woman with a hands-on-the-shoulder almost hug, and gave the air by her ear an almost kiss. “We’re so grateful you took the time to come, my dear,” she said, sweetly and intimately, as though they had been long-lost sisters, tragically separated somehow but still, somehow, bonded for life. “Oh, what’s this? You shouldn’t have.” For the woman was handing her something soft wrapped in an even softer fabric. Was it bugsilk? No, Murra realized, it had to be real silk! From old Earth! It was a pity that it was patterned with those quite hideous flowers, but still. One day, Murra thought-but not a very near day, not until the woman who had given it to her was no longer around-that wrapping could become a pretty scarf, or something attractively unusual to throw over the back of a chair.
When she unwrapped it and saw what the wrapping contained she said warmly, “Why, it’s really beautiful,” trying not to laugh, but all the same making sure Blundy saw with what effort she was politely not laughing. The gift inside was-imagine!-a stiff piece of some coarse fabric sewn with wool lettering. Greetings from space, it said, in strident green, blue and purple.
“It’s a sampler. People on Earth used to make them to hang up in their living rooms,” Mercy Macdonald explained. “I didn’t know if you’d like it-we call this sort of thing scrimshaw. People on other planets like to have these things, for souvenirs of our visit.”
“It’s stunning,” Murra said, knowing that Blundy would understand she thought it hideous; and just because she thought it so hideous she insisted that Blundy put it up at once on the wall over the couch in the living room.
“Can’t I help?” the man from the ship asked politely.
“Of course not, Captain Horeger,” Murra said warmly, consciously flattering him by upgrading his title. “You’re a guest.”
“Oh, please, call me Hans,” he said, looking at her with admiration, and not bothering to mention the fact that Mercy Macdonald, who was also a guest, was already standing to help Blundy with the hanging.
“Hans, then,” she said, saying it in a way that conveyed appreciation of the name, and also of the man who owned it. “Please, just sit down and make yourself comfortable. Let me get you some wine? It’s summer wine from last year. That’s when the grapes are best, just when everything starts to get too hot to grow.” And smiled at him while she was pouring, but did not fail to see, out of the corner of her eye, Mercy Macdonald handing the sampler up to Blundy, and their hands touching.
Although there were only six at dinner it wasn’t quite as intimate as Murra had intended. Though only the six of them sat down to eat, Rosha, the cleaner, had stayed on to serve and Grannis, the cooker, insisted on carrying some of the dishes in himself, thrilled to be so close to the visitors; and both of them felt quite free to take part in the conversation.
Murra made sure there was plenty of conversation, careful to guide it to new areas whenever it showed signs of slowing (after all, Murra’s dinners were not about food, they were about talk). But it didn’t need much guiding. There was plenty to talk about. The visitors had so much to learn about Slowyear, and the locals were delighted to tell them. About Slowyear’s seasons: “Well, yes, we have a very long year,” Blundy was telling Mercy MacDonald, “so we divide it into six principal seasons-coldspring, warmspring, summer, hotfall, coldfall and, of course, winter.”
Petoyne made a face. “Winter’s the worst,” she said, looking at Mercy MacDonald in a very wintery way.
“Not for me,” Rosha disagreed. He leaned past Murra to set down the soup tureen. “Wow, that was heavy,” he informed them all. “The way I look at it, when it’s winter at least you can dress warm and go out for a little while if you want to, but there’s nowhere to go in summer. Unless you’re rich. How’s the soup?”
“Fine,” Blundy said, just as though it were a reasonable question for a server to ask.
“Good, I’ll tell Grannis,” he said, and reluctantly left the room.
Murra smiled after him, just as though she meant it. “As a matter of fact,” she told her guests, “Blundy and I do go to one of the polar places sometimes in the summer.” Then she saw the look on Blundy’s face. “But not this one, I think,” she said.
Blundy picked up the conversation where it had been interrupted. “So altogether we have a hundred months, each one about seventy days long-there are holidays now and then to make it come out even with the year. Right now we’re in Green, coming up on Flower. The whole countryside gets really pretty in Flower; you’d like it.”
“I was born in Flower,” Vorian contributed. “That isn’t a good time, though. I was just beginning to get big enough to be really active when summer came along. My mother told me she had the devil of a time keeping me indoors from Fry to Sweat.”
“And I was born on the sixty-seventh of Shiver-that’s the first month of winter,” Murra added, “and Blundy’s birthday is the forty-fifth of Christmas, while Petoyne here has just had her very first birthday. The 11th of Green, wasn’t it, dear?”
Petoyne looked down at her food without answering. Blundy took up the thread. “So I’m two and seventeen months,” he told the company. “That would be about thirty-five of your years, Mercy. And, let’s see, Murra’s now-”
Murra was already overriding his voice. To the deputy captain: “Are you really enjoying your soup?”
“It’s delicious,” Horeger responded gallantly. “What is it?”
Petoyne giggled. “You don’t want to know. What do you eat on the ship?”
“Nothing as good as this,” Horeger said at once, and gave Murra a complimentary smile. She smiled back, comfortably aware that the main appreciation in his eyes was not for the food but for herself. That was a situation familiar to Murra, and always welcome. There was no doubt in her mind that this Hans Horeger person would sooner or later do his best to get her alone, and from there to a bed. She didn’t mind that. She looked forward to it, in fact. She also, however, knew that she definitely would not let it go that far, not ever. The self-indulgece of actually sleeping with any of the men who had made it clear she was invited would cost too much. As a minimum, it would mean the sacrificing of a grievance: she wouldn’t be unselfishly tolerating Blundy’s adulteries any more. Simply knowing that she could easily be bedded by Horeger was almost as good as doing it, and a lot less trouble in the long run.