“What happens if you win the right way?” Kath asked him.
“Then you lose out to the system. It’s like playing against Driscoll-the system makes it’s own aces.”
At that moment one of the Chironian girls from the group in the corner took Swyley lightly by the arm. “I thought you were getting some more drinks,” she said. “We’re all drying up over there. I’ll give you a hand. Then you can come back and tell us more about the Mafia. The conversation was just getting interesting.”
Colman’s eyes widened in surprise. “Him? What in hell does he know about the Mafia?”
The girl gave Colman a funny look. “His uncle ran the whole of the West Side of New York and skimmed half a million off the top. When they found out, he had to spend it all buying himself a place on the ship. You didn’t know?”
For a second Colman could only gape at her, He’d known that Swyley had been brought on to the Mayflower
11 as a kid by an uncle who had died fifteen years into the voyage from a heart condition, but that was about all.
“Hey, how come you never told us about that part?” he asked as the girl led Swyley away.
“You never asked me,” Swyley answered over his shoulder.
Re turned back, shaking his head despairingly, and looked at Kath again. Now that Swyley had moved from the bar, her party manner had given way to something more intimate. Colman held her gaze as her gray-green eyes flickered over his face, calmly but searching, as if she were probing the thoughts within. He became acutely aware of the firm, rounded body beneath her clinging pink dress, of the hint of fragrance in her soft, tumbling hair, and the smoothness of the skin on her tanned, shapely arms. Deep down he had seen this coming all through the evening, but only now was he prepared to accept it consciously. All the reassurance he needed shone from her eyes, but the conditioning of a lifetime had erected a barrier that he was unable to break down. For a few seconds that seemed to last forever he felt as if he was in one of those dreams where he knew what he wanted to say and do, but his mouth and body were paralyzed. He knew it was a reflex triggered by ingrained habits of thought, but at the same time he was powerless to overcome it,
And then he realized that Kath was smiling in a way that said there was no need to explain or rationalize anything. Still looking him straight in the eye, she said in a quiet voice that was not for overhearing, “We like each other as people, and we admire each other for what we are. There isn’t anything to feel hung up about on Chiron. People who feel like that usually make love, if that’s what they want to do.” She paused for a second. “Isn’t that what you’d like to do?”
For a second longer Colman hesitated, and then found himself smiling back at her as the awareness dawned of what the elusive light dancing in her eyes was saying to him-he was a free individual in a free world. And suddenly the barrier crumbled away.
“Yes, it is,” he replied. There was nothing more to say.
“I only live at Port Norday during the week,” Kath said. “I’ve got a place in Franklin as well. It’s not far from here at all.’
“And I am on early duty tomorrow,” Colman said. He grinned again, and she smiled back impishly, “So why are we still here?’ they asked together.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
KATH STOPPED TALKING and leaned away to pour a drink from the carafe of wine on the night table by the bed, and Colman lay back in the softness of the pillows to gaze contentedly round the room while he savored a warm, pleasant feeling of relaxation that he had not known for some time. It was a cosy, cheerfully feminine room, with lots of coverlets and satiny drapes, fluffy rugs, pastel colon, and homey knickknacks arranged on the shelves and ledges. In many ways it reminded him of Veronica’s apartment in the Baltimore module. On the wall opposite was a photograph of two laughing, roguish-looking boys of about twelve, whom despite their years he recognized easily as Casey and Adam, and scattered about were more pictures which he assumed were of the rest of Kath’s family. The one in a frame on the vanity resembled Adam. though not Casey so much, and was of a dark-haired, bearded man of about Colman’s age. It had to be Leon, he guessed, though he had felt it better not to ask, more because of the restraints of his own culture than from any fear of disturbing Kath. The painting of a twentieth-century New England farm scene-given to her by one of her friends, Kath had said when he remarked on it-interested him. Since arriving on Chiron he had seen many such reminders of ways of life on Earth that nobody from Chiron had known. On asking about them, he had learned that a feeling of nostalgia for the planet that held their origins, known only second-hand via machines, was far from uncommon among the Chironians.