Before they had been together a quarter of an hour he found himself buying his new companion a bland, unsatisfactory meal in the Satellite Cafe, one of several virtually indistinguishable restaurants available. Before leaving Hypo he'd picked up some back pay, a fat check because he hadn't been collecting pay while on the long mission, and he would have sought out a classier place to eat had there been any within reach.
After consuming about half of what he'd put on his tray, he pushed the rest away from him. "The best you can say for this stuff is that it kills the appetite."
"It's all right." Flower had eaten more than he, but she stopped eating now that he had done so.
"I like to eat by candlelight. Do you?"
Soon the couple were strolling again. They came to another observation port, or the same one where they'd met, looking down on the planet that Gift no longer really thought of as his homeworld.
At least it was the familiar homeworld of his race, and he felt mixed emotions. Even disguised and disfigured as it was by force fields, something about it looked so lovely.
Flower mentioned where she was from. Somewhere on Earth. Recently, it seemed, she had been living in or near Port Diamond.
"Uhao's a beautiful place."
She nodded enthusiastically. "I'm going back there soon."
An hour after his new friend had introduced herself, they had left the crowded restaurant, and Flower was standing beside the wounded veteran hero, already holding his arm—this time she had picked his good arm, perhaps by chance—in what seemed to Gift a somewhat proprietary way. He wasn't sure just how he felt about that.
Now the Earth appeared to be overhead, a prospect that made some observers giddy. The smoothly constant artificial gravity obtaining inside the passenger space, while intrinsically comfortable, made it harder to orient yourself properly with regard to the view outside.
Gift imagined himself completing his journey to Earth. Leaving the satellite, he would spend time riding a shuttle down, zigzagging slowly through layer after layer of force fields and other defenses. The trip—once you could get aboard a ship— now took several hours, considerably longer than he remembered. Without a high-priority clearance, which he certainly did not have, it was going to take a while. Under the high degree of alert that was presently in force, only a very few military ships were cleared to come from deep space directly to Earth's surface.
Flower, listening attentively and speaking wistfully, gave the impression that it was just naturally her job, or her destiny, to help Spacer Gift deal with the difficulties that went with becoming something of a minor celebrity—he'd had no choice in the matter, and she accepted the fact that nothing about his new status really pleased him.
Suddenly it occurred to him that he still didn't know why she had really come to the satellite. It couldn't very well have really been simply to meet him. Abruptly he demanded, "Where are you going?"
"I'm on my way back to Uhao."
"But I thought you were saying you just came from there. Like me." He'd begun to hope that at least he could count on her being with him on the shuttle going down to Earth.
"I did. I was going to meet someone here." Looking around at the crowd, she shook her head slightly. Then she added, with seeming irrelevance, "But it's such a lovely place. Uhao, I mean."
"Your family lives there?"
"Not my parents, no. Some friends. Friends are the family you choose for yourself."
"I've heard that."
Flower hesitated, and then more words poured out, while she tightened her grip on Gift's good arm.
"I just happen to have an extra ticket with me, and you're welcome to use it, if you like."
"An extra ticket."
"For passage on a spaceship. If you would be interested in coming back to Port Diamond with me."
The offer took him completely by surprise, and for a moment he could only look at her. "Go with you?"
"That's what I said." She amplified: "It's in a neat cabin on a luxury ship."
Gift had never been able to afford to travel like that. Very few people could. In the ordinary course of life he would probably never have traveled beyond atmosphere at all—except for having joined the service.
From the way she was holding his arm, hanging breathlessly on his answer, it became obvious that she really wanted him, in some serious way. Suddenly, in a quiet voice, she added, "They tell me my compartment has one big bed." Her eyelashes fluttered once when she spoke, and then she was looking away from him, while at the same time sliding her body a little closer.
Wow. Nifty's pulse was steadily quickening. The body under the short skirt had suddenly become attainable. He wondered who the lover was, what kind of man he was displacing on such short notice, and was on the verge of asking. But he supposed that none of that really mattered, and he decided not to press for any explanation. If Flower didn't want to offer one, he wasn't going to push.
But he didn't have to think about the basic question very long. And she certainly didn't need to ask him twice. "You've got a deal."
There was something to be said for hero worship after all.
EIGHT
Gift kept telling himself that he would soon be displaced in the public eye. Before long, some other wounded hero would come on the scene, probably someone who enjoyed the situation more, and had some kind of victorious story to tell: Then everyone would quickly lose interest in Nifty Gift.
And yet, in spite of everything, there was a part of him that hoped they wouldn't.
On impulse he took Flower in his arms and gave her a long and erotic kiss. They might as well have been holding hands for all the attention they got; there were a lot of separations and reunions going on here simultaneously.
Her response indicated that she had been serious when she talked about the fine bed in the luxury cabin.
After a few moments she held him at arm's length, and said with heartfelt sincerity, "I'm glad you're coming with me."
"Me too."
The problem was that the departure of the luxury liner was several hours away.
On the satellite there seemed only one possible way to obtain privacy—and only a doubtful kind of privacy at that. There was a large room with walls filled with tiers of metal-doored compartments, not that much larger than baggage lockers, and complete with Spartan furnishings and plumbing. It all looked pretty much like what Nifty imagined a prison would be like. The two upper rows of these compartments were accessible from catwalks running in front of the rows of doors. In one of these sleeping bins that passed as hotel rooms a truly weary traveler could grab some sleep, or truly impatient lovers could spend an hour out of sight of everyone else. Under the crowded conditions naturally all of these were booked, and a few people were even standing in line. Space on all civilian ships was at a premium just now, and anyone with a ticket would be well advised not to waste it.
After exchanging looks with Flower, Gift decided that his enjoyment of her body, much as he was looking forward to the experience, could wait until they could find a real room somewhere. Besides, contemplating the rows of cramped metal bins reminded him too forcibly of the confined space on the courier.
Flower seemed relieved, not at all anxious to try out the mailbox-type accommodations. She shrank back and demonstrated a general lack of enthusiasm.
They walked around some more. "How long have you been waiting for him?" he wondered aloud. "For who?"
He looked at her.
"Oh. It's a long story."
And not one that she wanted to tell, evidently. Or he, if the truth be known, to hear.
The luxury liner Flower had promised was docked at the proper gate; an enormous bulk, bigger than the cruiser, and only partially visible from where the locks connected.
The Queen Mab was ready to board passengers on schedule. The ticket that Flower handed Gift before they boarded had been issued under another man's name, but it seemed unlikely that anyone would bother to check up, and in fact nobody did.
<
br /> The line at the gate was short, and made up of well-dressed people. Gift took the opportunity of noticing that the name on his companion's ticket was not "Flower." And he assumed it was her own real name. But he continued to call her by the name she'd told him was hers.
The estimated arrival time back at Uhao was two or three days in the future, depending on flightspace conditions.
The luxury compartment, when they had found their way down the narrow corridor to reach it, almost lived up to Nifty's expectations—particularly when he'd just got through looking at the metal sleeping bins. The cabin certainly qualified as a real room, though its actual dimensions were a little tight. A virtual window had real curtains, stirring in a slight breeze, and a choice of pleasant scenes beyond, including mountains and the seashore. To one who had spent most of the last few months aboard a small military craft, this seemed indeed luxurious.
Muted chimes were followed by a genteel voice announcing that liftoff was in three minutes.
Almost before liftoff had been completed, Gift and Flower had closed themselves into their cabin, and were trying out the double bed. He discovered to his amusement that there was an attachment on the bed by which the local artificial gravity could be set to pulsate.
When the bed covers had been turned back, and Nifty's tunic and shirt came off, he automatically checked the appearance of his left arm, an act that had become a habit in recent days. The live portion of the limb looked a little mottled, but the return of function had been coming along nicely. There were still no obvious clues to the fact that his forearm and hand were not the ones he'd grown up with. The seam where his own skin blended with the fake stuff was practically invisible. Flower, who had known that the arm was hurt, took one glance at it and appeared to think no more about it. And Gift said nothing on the subject. He didn't want to talk about any of that anymore. Not if he could help it.
And, when the time came, a moment or two later, it was without real surprise that Nifty made the discovery that Flower's body hair was root dyed too. Follicles could be tuned to produce 256 colors in every square centimeter of skin.
When the two of them had got out of bed to unpack their modest baggage, and had done what little they had to do to settle into their compartment—it was about as large as an ordinary living room, with a private bath behind a door—he felt the need to talk to her some more, to justify himself. The bathroom had a window too, even a little larger than the one beside the bed.
Some hours later, they were lounging around in their cabin, watching on the little stage some space adventure story directed by Jay Nash.
"That means it'll be good."
"What're we going to do when we get to Uhao? I don't want to hang around anywhere near the base."
"I have some friends we could visit," she suggested.
But Nifty wasn't paying much attention. He had just been struck by an idea. "You know what? I want to take one of those pyramid tours. All the time I've spent on that planet, and I've always wanted to do that… and I've never done it."
Flower was agreeable.
Everything aboard ship was going smoothly enough for the couple until they visited the dining room. It turned out that they were sharing a table with an older couple.
The other couple picked up on something Flower said, and identified Nifty as the celebrity war hero.
By now Gift felt himself getting very tired, unnaturally tired, of telling and retelling the story of what happened to him and to his shipmates, way over there toward the far side of the Gulf. It felt like he had told it a thousand times, though when he actually tried to count them up, it turned out that if he left out the debriefing sessions, a dozen would be a lot closer to the truth.
Gradually, in the process of retelling, the corners and edges of the narrative had got smoothed off, and some details were changed. Actually by now there were several versions; he wasn't quite sure which one he liked the best. According to the fragmentary version that Gift was passing along to Flower in bits and pieces, the last surviving pair of his shipmates, Traskeluk and Terrin, had both been killed in his presence, trying to make the same escape that he'd managed successfully. This time he had them a little ahead of him in their flight—the two of them trying to ride the scooter at the same time.
Flower listened intently, almost without interrupting. Once she broke in to ask: "How close did you get to the berserker?"
"Too damn close."
"Did you really see it?"
"Will you kindly just shut up about that? I don't want to talk about it."
Accepting the rebuke meekly, Flower gave up trying to press the wounded hero for more particulars of his story. But she had listened solemnly and attentively while he was telling it. Gift couldn't make up his mind whether she believed everything he told her or not. Certainly she seemed sympathetic, if only because she gave him her concentrated attention.
Although by now he had come, on some level, to actually believe his own story. There was a lot of truth in it, after all.
He must have been looking at Flower in a questioning way, for at last she said: "It's a strange story. But I believe it."
He looked at her. "Why shouldn't you believe it?"
"I just said I do."
Now that Gift was aboard a ship carrying him away from home at superluminal velocity, he was free to let himself understand that the closer he had been getting to Earth and to his relatives, the sharper a certain private fear had grown. Now he was able to define it: It was a dread of some day running into the relatives or friends of the two people he'd left behind to be roasted by the berserker. Even if he tried to avoid them, he couldn't help feeling that he'd one day run into them by accident. As if Earth was a small town, and if someone was there you were bound to see them.
Sooner or later, he thought, those people would be deliberately trying to seek him out. Traskeluk's family, he recalled, had belonged to some weird clan, most of whose members were on some distant world. Trask's peers aboard ship, including Gift once or twice, had joked with him about it. But he could very clearly remember Traskeluk saying that some of his people had migrated back to Earth and Port Diamond. He knew less about the family of Ensign Terrin.
Then there was always the chance that Gift would encounter another journalistic interviewer, one who'd encourage him to get maudlin about his dear comrades who had been lost. A large segment of the public loved that kind of thing. Or at least that seemed to be the theory guiding a great number of journalists. No doubt in a few months it would be safe for him to go home—or he would be better prepared to face the questioning. But not just now.
It came to Gift as a private, inner shock that some people—if they wanted to put an unfriendly interpretation on that accident when his two shipmates had been lost—would think that a man who'd done what they suspected Nifty Gift of doing fit the definition of goodlife. Of course that was nonsense—he'd saved his own life, hadn't he? And a courier machine, which had some value. And whatever information the machine had happened to have on board.
Yes, of course the truth was (though it would be awkward to come right out and say so) that all he'd really done had been to exercise common sense. Even supposing the courier's drive and autopilot had been working perfectly. Yes, even then, his two shipmates had been dead, before he could have possibly done anything to help them. His getting himself killed too wouldn't have brought them back. Would it?
And about the same time it struck Gift also, with the weight of a final decision, that he really didn't want to go home at all, where he would certainly have to talk about all these things again—and again. Not only didn't he want to go there now, but it would be all right with him if he never saw those people and that place again.
Passengers on a ship like this, Gift soon discovered, usually took their meals in a dining room. Probably two seatings were generally required, but maybe only one if there were only a few folk traveling. Some preferred to have their food brought, by robot steward, to their cabins. But it was good
to get out of the cabin if only for a little while.
The next time they went to the dining room the people who had recognized Gift were there again, and insisted on paying for his meal, and his companion's. And hinted that they would like to hear his story yet again. He declined, more or less politely.
"It's young men like you who will bring us through." And they raised their glasses to him.
"Thank you," said Nifty, not knowing what else to say. Now people at other tables were smiling at him too. Evidently the story of his fame had got around.
When they were making their way back to their cabin, ' Flower said: "If you were wearing civvies instead of your uniform, people might not recognize you."
"All right, I'll change." He hesitated. "It's not that I want to be recognized. Just that my civvy clothes are a little shabby for a ship like this. Actually, they might make me even more noticeable."
"Let me see." She looked through his meager change of clothing and thought about it. "There's a gift shop on board. Tell me your sizes, and I can get some things for you."
"The prices are going to be pretty high. I wanted to save my money so we can do some fun things when we land."
Again she thought about it, frowning prettily. No great intellectual, this girl; but that was all right with Gift. If she was seriously planning to buy him expensive presents, her heart was certainly in the right place.
At last her face cleared. "It'll be all right, I've got some money. No reason I can't spend it on you."
"Well." Nifty didn't know what to think or say. But he supposed that Flower might well come from some family that was filthy rich. "Well, thanks," he got out at last.
"Besides," his new companion said, her face brightening by a few more degrees, "if you're in civvies, the space police or whatever they are won't pester you any more. Will they?"
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