“Oh, yes,” Ulla said passionately.
“So do quite a few of our consortes, I hear. Don’t you ever get tired of all those house guests?”
“No, no, they are friends. And it is good for the children to meet such different kinds of people, not in a screen but here, alive.”
“And they bring space home to us in a way that recordings, writings, nothing else can do.” Wistful-ness tinged Lars’s voice.
“I understand,” said Guthrie quietly.
“Business as well as pleasure,” Ulla continued. “It is necessary to know everything one can, when so much is always unknown. The house is becoming a center for informal, rank-free conferences—But why am I telling you?”
“Because you’re feeling a tad nervous, ma’am. Don’t. This is not the boss coming to dinner.” Guthrie laughed. “Absolutely not.” In seriousness: “Lars and I are closer than you realize. I think the time’s ripe, you’ve proved you are reliable, for you to learn how close that is. But first, what I’ve mainly come about, I ask for your help.”
“Whatever we can do!”
They mounted the steps, crossed to the door, opened it, and passed through into the vestibule. A cloud left the sun. The colors in a window blazed, Daedalus and Icarus a flight.Cloaks removed, Lars led the way to a room whose ceiling was the roof itself, beams two stories above a parquet floor, oak wainscots, stone fireplace where logs were burning. Light fell soft upon furniture ancient and massive, thick carpet and drapes, paintings from centuries ago, wrought brass and silver. Smetana’s “Moldau” flowed out of speakers. The robot entered like a spider into a sanctuary.
“Shall we talk here?” Lars proposed.
“Okay,” Guthrie said. “I see you haven’t changed anything to speak of. Do by all means, if you want. Isn’t the d6cor kind of heavy for you?”
“No, no,” Lars replied. “We have felt free to adapt the rest of the house, but this—it feels right as it is.”
“Not a shrine,” Ulla added. “We use it, it is the center of our home. But it is also like a heart or a root, not only for us but for Fireball.” •
Neither of them mentioned the other unaltered chamber, the one where Guthrie died.
“Can we … offer you anything, sir?” she went on, suddenly awkward.
“Just your company,” Guthrie answered. “Wit and wisdom, or whatever else you’ve got in stock. Look, por favor, relax. Pour a Scotch or coffee or something, put your feet up, let’s be our plain selves.”
He guided them for a while through gossip and minor affairs: what had lately happened in the Hawaiian compound where the Rydbergs spent some of their winters; their recent vacation in L-5, the burgeoning arts and amusements of variable weight; a carefully unpublicized comic incident at Weinbaum Station on Mars; mining operations on Elara, Jupiter XI; the new Lake Aldrin park in Luna—
“It is about Luna, is it not?” Lars asked. “Why you have come.”
By then he sat beside Ulla, a glass in his hand, a cup in hers. Guthrie faced them, standing before the hearth. Firelight shimmered on the metal of him. Words moved readily.
“Yeah,” he said. “I daresay you guessed right away when I called about getting together.” Lars nodded. “After all, Dagny Beynac is your mother.”
“And virtually coequal with the governor general,” Ulla observed.
“Not legally,” Lars reminded her. “She has no official position these days, aside from her berth in Fireball.”
“The much greater her power.”
“You’re a wise lady,” Guthrie said. “She’s only half concerned about Fireball these days.”
Shocked by the outspokenness, Lars exclaimed, “She would never break troth!”
“I didn’t say that. Of course not. On the contrary, you know how since her supposed retirement she’s stayed on tap as a consultant for us, but maybe you don’t know just how badly the outfit would hate to lose her advice.”
Guthrie fell silent for a span before he resumed, “However, like everything else human, ‘troth’ can be taken in a number of different ways.”
Lars went defensive. “Please, what do you mean by that?”
“Nothing bad. She doesn’t figure Fireball can be hurt by her Lunarians getting more of what they want, mainly home rule and scope for action. She claims we’d benefit. But she is more and more involved with the effort to get it for them.” Guthrie made a sigh. “As a result, we’re no longer as close as we used to be, we two.”