“Very sharp, Amanda,” he said, impressed. “Very sharp. The dishes have monomolecular beacons sprayed on their bottoms. The robots sense the microwave signals.”
Pancho lifted up her water tumbler and squinted at its bottom.
“The chip’s too small to see with the naked eye,” Humphries said.
“What powers ’em?”
“The heat from the food or drink. They have trouble with iced drinks… and your salad.”
Pancho thought it over for half a second. “Dishes pick up residual heat when we handle them, huh?”
“That’s right.”
Pancho smiled as the other robot placed a steaming plate of frogs’ legs before her. Don’t want Humphries to think Mandy’s the only smart one here, she told herself.
All through dinner Humphries was charming, solicitous, all smiles. He paid almost as much attention to Pancho as he did to Amanda, up to the point where he encouraged Mandy to tell them about her early life. She began to talk, hesitantly at first, about growing up in London, winning a scholarship to the International Space University.
“It wasn’t easy,” Amanda said, with almost childlike candor. “All the men seemed to think I was better suited to be a photographer’s model than an astronaut.”
Humphries made a sympathetic murmur. Pancho nodded, understanding all over again that Mandy’s good looks had been as much of a problem for her as an advantage.
“But I made it,” she finished happily, “and here we all are.”
“Good for you,” said Humphries, patting her hand. “I think you’ve done wonderfully well.”
As dessert was being served—fresh fruit from the botanical garden outside with soymilk ice cream—Amanda asked where the lavatory was.
Once she had left the room Pancho leaned closer to Humphries and asked in a lowered voice, “Well, whattaya think?”
He frowned with annoyance. “About what?”
“About Mandy.” She almost added, lunkhead, but stopped herself just in time.
“She’s wonderful,” Humphries said, beaming. “Beautiful but brainy, too. You don’t see that very often.”
Pancho thought, Women don’t let you see their brains very often, not if they can get by on their looks.
Aloud, she asked, “So d’you think she’d be any good cozyin’ up to Dan Randolph?”
“No!” he snapped.
“No?” Pancho was astonished. “Why not?”
“I don’t want her anywhere near Randolph. He’ll seduce her in a hot second.”
Pancho stared at the man. I thought that was the whole idea, she said to herself. Get Mandy into Randolph’s bed. I thought that’s what he’d want.
“She’s much too fine a woman to be used that way,” Humphries added.
Oh, for cryin’ out loud, Pancho realized. He’s fallen for her! This guy who picks up women like paperclips and dumps ’em when he feels like it, he doesn’t just have the hots for Mandy. He’s fallen in love with her. Just like that!
SELENE GOVERNING COUNCIL
Dan couldn’t help contrasting in his mind this meeting of Selene’s governing council with the meeting of the GEC’s executive board he’d attended a few weeks earlier in London.
The meeting took place in Selene’s theater, with the council sitting at student’s desks arranged up on the stage in a semi-circle. Just about every seat on the main floor and the balconies was taken, although the box seats on either side of the stage were all empty. Maybe they’ve been roped off for some reason, Dan thought. Must be two thousand people out there, he thought as he peeked out at the audience through the curtains screening the stage’s wings. Just about every voting citizen in Selene’s showed up for this meeting.
As he stood in the wing of the stage, the council members filed past him, taking their seats. For the most part they looked young, vigorous. Six women, five men, none with white hair. A couple of premature baldies among the men; they must be engineers, Dan thought. He knew that membership on the council was a part-time task assigned by lottery; no one was allowed to duck their public service, although they could take time off their regular jobs to attend to their extra duties.
“Nervous?”
Dan turned at the sound of Doug Stavenger’s voice. Smiling, he answered, “When you’ve had to sit through as many board meetings as I have, you don’t get nervous, you just want to get it the hell over with.”