"I doubt that. I've been careful to hint at the exact opposite around Confluence and suggested that we're having our best-ever season. But I know how little our machines have been coming back with. If we pull this off, though, you and I will never have to worry about transuranics again." She picked up her glass. "Think of it, Knute. A few difficult weeks, at the most. And then you will live just how you like and where you like."
"I am thinking of it. Agreed." Knute lifted his glass and touched it to Pearl's. "To success."
"Very good." Pearl took a thoughtful sip. "And now, as they say, for the details."
Shelby had been convinced before he entered the Confluence Center that every eye would be on him, but as it turned out he was less of a center of attention than on the previous night. Shelby Cheever again, the curious glances said. And he seems to have been foolish enough to break his nose. Then they turned away to something more interesting.
Grace had her arm tucked through Shelby's. She, even more than he, was on the lookout for one particular person. "Remember what you promised," she said. "If you do meet tonight, whatever happens you won't start a fight."
"I didn't start one last time. He beat me up for nothing."
"It wasn't for nothing. But don't let's get into that again.
I want you and Nick to at least try to get on with each other. Why don't you see if you can be friends—for my sake."
"I'll try. But it's not because I'm afraid of him."
"I know. Where is he, though?" She wasn't listening to Shelby anymore, she was scanning the crowd anxiously. "Nick never misses a single night at Confluence. I wonder what's keeping him? Maybe he's been grounded."
"I hope not."
It was a lie. Shelby's feelings were more complex than that. He didn't want to meet Nick Rasmussen, but also he didn't like the idea of postponing what seemed like an inevitable meeting. As Jilter had pointed out, Shelby couldn't hide away right through Confluence.
But what was he supposed to do if Nick picked another fight? Stand and get punched again? He couldn't do that, not even for Grace's sake.
And then he didn't have to worry about theoretical questions anymore, because Nick Rasmussen was there. He was about twenty yards away, standing bolt upright with his arms held by his sides.
Grace had seen him too. "Let's go," she hissed. "If we're going to talk to him, now's the time."
"No." Shelby disengaged his arm from hers. "I'm going to do it. But I want to do it alone."
"Shell"
"It's all right. I told your mother as well as you, I won't do anything stupid."
"What about Nick? Muv didn't talk to him."
"I'll take my chances. Leave us to it." Shelby waited, until after a few moments of hesitation Grace went reluctantly off toward another group of teenagers. Only when she had been absorbed into their midst did Shelby walk across to stand about three feet in front of Nick Rasmussen.
The two stared at each other for a long time without speaking. At last Nick said, "Look, I didn't want to come here at all tonight."
"So why did you?"
"My old man made me. He's pretty pushy. You know what dads are like."
"Yeah." Shelby could relate to that. He and Nick Rasmussen might have at least on thing in common. If Nick's father was anything like J. P. Cheever, you couldn't argue him down.
Without thinking about it, the two moved gradually away from the dance area to a spot that would later be used for food machines and a buffet service. For the moment it was empty.
"Dad said that he and Captain Trask had agreed," Nick went on. He looked everywhere but at Shelby. "Dad said I was to go over to the Harvest Moon yesterday and apologize to you. Then Captain Trask called and said don't bother. What happened?"
"I didn't want you to. It wouldn't have done any good. You'd still think I had something to do with what went on between you and Grace."
"Didn't you?" Nick's gaze met Shelby's. "I thought you did."
"If you know Grace, you know that nobody can make her do anything she doesn't want to do."
"Yeah." Nick nodded ruefully. "I'll buy that. Grace don't budge easy."
"Anyway, I didn't want your stupid apology. What good would an apology do? I wanted to smash your face in, the way you smashed mine. Maybe I ought to do it right now."
Shelby clenched his fists. Whenever he thought about last night he became angry all over again. But instead of getting ready to defend himself, Nick Rasmussen straightened and held his arms rigidly at his sides.
"Well?" Shelby positioned himself in what Jilter had told him was the best position if you had no idea what the other man might do. "Come on. Do we or don't we?"
"I can't." Nick shook his head. "Can't get into a fight, I mean. Look, I'm not scared of you or anything like that. But Dad said if you started something I mustn't fight back. I'm to stand and take it, he said, or he'll kill me. So I guess you've got a free shot, same as I had yesterday." He tightened his mouth, closed his eyes, and winced in anticipation. "Get on with it."
Shelby took a half-step back and raised his fist. With Nick standing in that position he was absolutely defenseless. Shelby could pick his target and hit where and as hard as he liked.
After a few seconds he shook his head and lowered his arm. "You might as well relax. I'm not going to hit you."
Nick opened his eyes to slits and peered warily at Shelby. "Why not?"
"It wouldn't make my nose better any quicker. And I'm from Earth. We're not savages back there. Earth people don't go for that eye-for-an-eye-and-a-tooth-for-a-tooth stuff."
"Nor do we." Nick opened his eyes all the way. "It was my dad's idea, not mine, to let you hit me the way I hit you. I didn't want to be poked."
"Nor did I. But you did it."
"I know. But I was real mad last night about—something. You know what. I'm sorry."
"All right, then." The two stood staring at each other, until Shelby said, "What now?"
In unison they looked over to the dance area. There was no sign of Grace.
"You want to go back there?" Nick asked. "I mean, do you want to go to the dance?"
"Me? No way. I never did want to dance. I'm a terrible dancer."
"So why did you do it yesterday? Don't bother to tell me, I can guess. Lots of us on the harvesters don't like to dance."
"So why do you do it?"
"As a way to meet girls. Or because the girls want us to. But there's a ton of good things to do at Confluence for people who don't dance."
"Good like what?"
"Good, like treasure hunts, and round-the-fleet races, and human/robot competitions, and team sports. There's swimming, too. The Confluence Center has its own pool. None of the harvesters do, because the water you need for a pool masses too much to have on board a ship. There's even an eating contest. We move that from place to place and keep it pretty quiet, because grown-ups don't like us doing it—the winners always throw up at the end, and most of the losers do, too." Nick paused. "You interested in any of this?"
"I sure am."
"Come on, then." Nick's voice gained enthusiasm. "I'll show you around, introduce you to some of my buddies."
"I already met Mooks and your kid brother."
"I guess you did. Mooks is all right, but Skip is a real pain—he trails around after us and tries to pretend he's as grown-up as we are. He's Doobie's big pal. They both belong in the juvenile moron club. We keep 'em out of our things as much as we can. There's a lot more to do in Confluence Center than you'd ever know if you only talked to little kids like Doobie and Skip—or even if you just talked with Grace."
Shelby allowed Nick to lead him away, heading from the dance floor to an area of the habitat that he had never visited before. Nick's stiffness and formality were vanishing rapidly.
He was talking nonstop about the things to see and places to go in the Confluence Center.
It seemed to Shelby that for a man with a broken heart, Nick was making a pretty speedy recovery.
The dance
ended at one in the morning. Other events at Confluence Center went on all night. The Harvest Moon, however, had its own rules for anyone under twenty-one. Lana Trask made it clear that, no matter what other harvester teenagers might do, the deadline for Shelby, Grace, and Doobie was to be at the pinnace by two o'clock.
Which Shelby was going to make—just. He came across the curving Confluence Center floor at a dead run. The huge metal cube that he was carrying didn't help his speed, but he would face Lana Trask's anger before he would leave it behind. He had been given a thousand things back on Earth, but this was the only thing he had ever won in his whole life.
And he had won it fair and square, beating out a scrawny seventeen-year-old on the final spin.
He skidded around the corner that led to the pinnace and ran into Doobie Trask, who was coming just as fast from the other direction.
"What you got?" Doobie was panting hard, but seeing Shelby he relaxed and assumed that they had plenty of time.
"Tell you inside—ten seconds to deadline."
"Yipes!"
They went scrambling into the pinnace, Doobie first, just as the two-o'clock buzzer sounded.
"We're in time," gasped Doobie.
Jilter Clute, standing at the hatch, nodded. "Close enough for me. I'll give you the benefit of the doubt. Stow that, and we're off."
His last words were to Shelby, who put the metal box on the floor and leaned over it to catch his breath.
"What you got?" Doobie asked again.
"Sounder finder. When you're close enough to a reef it's supposed to tell you the distance and direction of the nearest sounder."
"Ah." Doobie pulled a face. "I don't swallow that. It won't work. Will it, Jilter? Can it locate sounders?"
"Nothing has before. But who knows?" Jilter shrugged and started the pinnace drive. "There's a first time for everything."
"I'll believe it when I see it work." Doobie was peering into the open top. "Where'd you get it, Shel?"
"I won it!" Shelby's grin was wide enough to include everyone in the pinnace. Who cared if Doobie was skeptical? "Won it for cross-hurling. I beat Lucas Fosse on the last throw!"
He wasn't going to tell them how lucky he had been. In cross-hurling you threw a spinning hoop at a target away on the other side of Confluence Center. At first the problem seemed straightforward: Things in space move in a straight line. Then you realized that the hoop acted like a gyroscope and stayed flat to maintain a constant direction of rotation. Also, Confluence Center was rotating beneath your feet, which meant that from your point of view the cross-hurl hoop followed a strange curved path. It also seemed as though it turned in midair, an illusion produced by your own motion.
Put all that together with the fact that Shelby had never played before, and there was no way that he could have won.
But he had. His final hoop had soared away to the other side of the big cylinder of Confluence Center and passed around the peg so dead center that the support didn't even wobble. Lucas Fosse's last shot had also tagged the peg, but it was near the hoop edge and you could hear the rattle all the way across at the starting line. Shelby knew that he had won without waiting for the official result.
"Well, I bet this sounder finder won't work." Doobie's head was almost inside the metal cube. "It's dumb. I think you've been gypped. Looks to me like somebody just cobbled this together from bits of old junk."
"You're only jealous." Shelby glanced around for support and noticed Grace for the first time. She was sitting quietly in a corner and had not spoken a word since he and Doobie had arrived.
He went across to her. "Well, I did it."
She glanced up at him coldly. "Did what? I can't read your mind, you know; and I haven't seen you for the past five hours."
"I did what you asked me to do. I met Nick Rasmussen, and I didn't start a fight with him."
"I see."
"In fact, once he took me to the reccy area things went on pretty well between us. He's not a bad guy. We started talking, and when it comes to fathers he and I have a fair bit in common."
"I'm sure you do."
Grace turned pointedly away and faced the wall. She didn't say another word until they reached the Harvest Moon, and then it was just a curt "Goodnight."
"What's got into her?" Shelby asked Jilter in bewilderment as she vanished with Doobie close behind her. "I mean, earlier tonight she told me about every two seconds that I was to try to make friends with Nick Rasmussen and I mustn't start a fight. So I do exactly what she says, and now look at her. Do you think she really wants the two of us fighting, even though she says she doesn't?"
"Fighting over her?" Jilter considered, as the two of them walked slowly toward their cabins. "I've known stranger things. How many times did you dance with Grace tonight?"
"Dance? Not at all—not with her, not with anybody. I was too busy with other things. Like this." Shelby patted the metal cube that was only just wide enough to pass along the corridor.
"Other things. Any other things involving Grace?"
Shelby shook his head. "I was too busy with Nick and Mooks and their friends. There's nothing wrong with that, is there? I mean, Grace wanted to be at the dance. She told me so. And she insisted that she wanted me to meet Nick."
"I've no doubt she told you exactly that."
"So what's going on?"
"I'm not sure there's a name for it. But it's been around for a long time." Jilter was at the door of his cabin. He nodded to Shelby as he went in. "It's one reason some people— like me, for instance—don't ever get married."
Chapter Twelve
DURING the seven days of Confluence nothing was normal. Regular schedules were ignored in favor of frenzied trading, hard-fought team games, hurried courtships, and continuous carnival. After all that excitement it was difficult to settle again into steady work. Young members of the harvester crews found it especially hard. In Shelby's case, life on the Harvest Moon only returned to reality when, on the third day out from Confluence, Uncle Thurgood and Scrimshander Limes came into the ship's recreation area. They were arguing, in good old pre-Confluence fashion.
"I only wished to point out," Scrimshander was saying, "that the Southern Cross is behind us and has been following us for at least two days."
"And what's new about that? Wasn't the Southern Cross behind us most of the trip out? And the trip before this one? And before that it was the Balaclava. I'll tell you your problem, Scrimshander Limes." Thurgood shook a thick finger at his partner. "You're getting above yourself. You think you know everything better than anybody else."
It was a reference to certain events during Confluence. The figurines carved by Scrimshander had become popular with the crews of the other harvesters, and suddenly they were all the rage. Every carving that Scrimshander could produce and put on display—even his old rejects—had been snapped up. To Thurgood's intense disgust and suspicion, Scrimshander became a minor celebrity. Scores of men and women sought him out in his little trading room at the Confluence Center, talking with him about his work, admiring his almost unconscious skill with knife and plastic, and commissioning carvings that did not yet exist.
Thurgood's attempts to shoo people away had been ignored. He had been ignored. People didn't want to see Thurgood Trask, and they didn't want to hear Thurgood Trask. They wanted Scrimshander Limes, and they made their views clear.
"What do you suggest?" Thurgood continued. "Do you want to tell everybody that we own this part of the Cloud, so the Southern Cross and all the other harvesters can't come near it? Is that what you want?"
"Not at all. As I said, I only wished to point out—"
"Well, you have pointed out, so that's enough." Uncle Thurgood noticed that Shelby and Grace were in the recreation room. He scowled at them. "Can't you see that a private conversation is going on here? We don't want you snooping on us and interrupting us. Get the blazes out!"
Grace and Doobie left. As they went through the door Grace snorted, "Us interrupting them. Wha
t's he talking about? We were in there before they were! They were interrupting us."
Shelby decided not to point out the truth: that Scrim and Thurgood had not interrupted anything between him and Grace, because nothing had been happening to interrupt. All through Confluence and for the three days after it, Grace and he had hardly spoken. She had answered questions in a syllable, or not at all. After three or four tries Shelby had given up. For the past half-hour they had ridden side-by-side exercise machines, but never a word or a look had passed between them.
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