A saying of her mother’s, that Maria had said she got from Dominic Flandry, who had gotten it from somebody else, came back to Diana. “This is Liberty Hall. You can spit on the mat and call the cat a bastard.” She felt guilty, ungrateful, about the irreverence.
“We have modified two rooms as best we could for our xenosophont guests,” Vishnu added. “I trust they will prove satisfactory.”
The four finally left Diana alone in the boudoir assigned her. It was pleasant. The pictures on the walls were conventional scenes and historic portraits, but a hospice should stay neutral and the sight of the Hellas peaks from her south window was breathtaking. A bath adjoined. Closet and drawers held a variety of garments closer to her exact size than she could reasonably have expected. Also set forth were tobacco cigarettes, which she would not use; marijuana smokes, which she might; and a bottle of excellent whisky, which she immediately did.
Wallowing in a tubful of hot water, prior to a small supper and a long sleep, she found it unbelievable that Targovi should imagine evil of these people. Or at least, she forced herself to admit, she did not want to find it believable.
Heimdal would call on the Tigery and Isis on the Wodenite, for preliminary sightseeing and getting acquainted. Diana’s guide would be Kukulkan. She gulped her brunch, marginally noticing that it was tasty, and had nothing but mumbles for her tablemates, before she returned to her room to dress for the occasion.
How? It was a problem new to her. While her mother lived, boys had begun shyly inviting her to picnics or dances or toboggan parties, that kind of thing; but they were her sort, from families stationed in an outpost where finery was rare. Since then she’d been encountering grown men and learning considerable wariness of them. Some were decent, of course, and she could have been safely married by now if she had wanted. The stars beckoned too brilliantly, though.
And for Kukulkan Zachary, the stars were reachable.
“Easy, lass, easy,” she warned herself. Nevertheless her hand shook a bit while she combed luster back into her hair and secured it with a silver headband. After agonizing, she had chosen a white frock, knee-length, suitable for a broad leather belt; sturdy sandals, good to walk distances in; and a hooded blue cloak with a bronze-and-ruby snake brooch. Given such an outfit she could wear her knife as a very natural accessory. Not that she expected trouble. What she did need to do, in the middle of this overwhelmingness, was proclaim—to herself as much as anybody else—that she remained her own woman.
Kukulkan waited in the living room. He rose and bowed in Imperial court style. He himself wore everyday Terran-type shirt (saffron, open halfway down the chest), slacks (dark blue, form-hugging), and shoes (sturdy, scuffed, lots of hiking behind them). “Good day, milady,” he greeted. “We’re lucky. Magnificent weather, and nothing to hurry for.”
“Good day,” she replied, annoyed that her voice fluttered like her pulse. “You’re so kind.”
He took her hand. “My pleasure, I assure you. My joy.” How white his teeth were, how luminous his slanty eyes.
“Well, I—I’m at your call, I reckon. Uh, what were you thinkin’ of for today?”
“M-m, the afternoon is wearing on. We might start with a stroll up to Falconer’s Park on the western headland. The name comes from a tremendous view. Later—well, the night will be clear again, and things stay open around the clock. Things like museums and art galleries, I mean. We don’t have the ordinary sort of public entertainments or restaurants or anything like that. But automated food and drink services aren’t bad, and eventually—well, if we happen to end at my home, I scramble a mean egg, and all we Zacharians keep choice wine cellars.”
She laughed, more consciously than was her wont. “Thanks very much. Let’s see what I can do before I collapse.”
They left. A fresh breeze blew over the campus, smelling of grass lately mown. It soughed through silvery trembling of poplars, dark stoutness of chestnuts. A few persons were afoot among the ivied buildings. They wore ordinary clothes, and for the most part were getting along in years. But … scholars, scientists, lords and ladies of the arts, whose minds ranged beyond this heaven—?