"And then she helps me, too," his father put in, looking slightly recovered.
Viktor blinked. "Teaching your course?" he guessed, incredulous.
"No, of course not teaching my course. Except in a way, maybe—I mean, she's been helping to download the data banks from Ark and Mayflower. We've set up new storage by the power plants and the freezers, so in case anything happens to those ships—"
"Nothing can happen to the ships," Viktor said, shocked.
"Something might," his father said firmly. "Then we'd be screwed for fair. Do you know how long it would take to get everything retransmitted from Earth? But we've already got most of the astrophysical files duplicated here," he finished, looking pleased for the first time. "That was a big job. Do you know, I think that calls for a drink."
And they had one … except that his father had two. And Viktor began to understand what put those worry lines on his mother's face. It wasn't just hard work. What was aging her was worry about her husband.
Viktor was glad enough for the little birthday party and the company of young Edwina and the two brats, but he was even more glad when he got away.
When he got back to the top of the hill it was dusk, and the dancing had already begun. Viktor searched the dancers. They were in a double circle of couples, men and women singing softly to themselves in Spanish as the three-piece fiddle-guitar-and-drum band played something with a Mexican lilt. It was a corrido, and Viktor saw Reesa in the inner circle, holding right hands at shoulder height with—hell, yes! He scowled. It was Billy Stockbridge again.
But Reesa was not the only young woman among the dancers. When the next tune started Viktor grabbed a pretty young tractor driver and whirled her through a square dance. And then he was caught up in the fun of the dancing itself. He hardly noticed when he found himself with Reesa as his partner, swinging her around wildly, her laughing and panting, leaning against his arm around her waist. They did the krakowiak—hop, click heels, stamp; they did the macho Greek dances and the slow Israeli ones. When Reesa sat out one dance to nurse the baby, Yan, Viktor didn't even miss her, though when it was over he came to where she was sitting on the blanket, the baby at her breast. It was only a little annoyance that Freddy Stockbridge was sitting there, too. Freddy wasn't dancing. He wasn't reading his prayer book, either, because it was too dark for that, but Viktor noticed with irritation that Freddy had put on a clerical collar for the occasion.
Reesa looked up at Viktor, her face flushed and happy. "They're going to start the fireworks in a minute," she said. "Why don't you sit with us? Freddy, go get us some wine."
Viktor eased himself down to the blanket beside her, watching the sleepy little mouth of his son sucking absentmindedly at Reesa's breast. He glanced after the disappearing Freddy.
"I thought priests were supposed to be celibate," he said.
"Mind your own business," Reesa told him. Then, relenting, she said, "I guess Freddy is. He just likes children. He's real good about baby-sitting for me."
"Doesn't take after his brother, then," Viktor observed, but the way Reesa's face tightened told him not to pursue the subject. Anyway, a pistol-shot sound in the air and a gasp from the crowd marked the first of the fireworks. They quieted to watch the display as Freddy came stumbling back with three cups of wine. Viktor helped Reesa cover his sleeping little son, tucking him in next to her already sound asleep toddler. Viktor was beginning to feel really good. The fireworks were brilliant and lovely to look at, under the warm Newmanhome sky. And then, when they were over, they did the last few dances, ending with the sweet, slow Misirlou. Misirlou means "beloved" in Greek. Perhaps that was why, when the last dance was over, Viktor looked around. Neither Jake Lundy nor Billy Stockbridge was nearby, so he offered quickly, "I'll help you get the kids home, if you want."
Reesa didn't object. Freddy looked annoyed but drifted away. The two of them shared the sleeping children, Viktor carrying the toddler and Reesa the baby, Yan, as they walked down the hill. They didn't speak for a while, and then Viktor remembered a question on his mind. "What's this astrophysics class all about?" he demanded.
"It's just what your father said it is," she said shortly. She looked at him with curiosity. "I noticed today you're all sunburned," she accused. "What do you do, lounge around on the deck all day to get that he-man tan for the girls? Do you want to wreck your skin?"
He refused to be diverted. "No, really," he insisted. "Do you think knowing how to tell a Wolf-Rayet star from an ordinary O is going to help you get to be a space pilot—twenty years from now?"
"It might," she said seriously. "And it might not be twenty years; Argosy has small spaceships ready to go, you know, and it's due pretty soon now."
"Sure, when Argosy lands," Viktor scoffed. It was what everybody said when they didn't have something they really wanted: it would certainly be somewhere in the third ship's limitless treasure of stores. "What makes you think they won't have their own pilots for their own ships?"
She shrugged. "We still have our own landers," she pointed out. "We'll have more fuel for them, once they get the freezers going. And anyway—" she hesitated, then plunged on. "Anyway, I think it's good for your father to be doing something. He's, uh, he's drinking a lot these days, you know."
"I do know," Viktor said stiffly. As an afterthought, he added, "It's his business."
Reesa didn't challenge that. They walked in silence for a moment, then Viktor said tentatively, "I thought if you weren't doing anything, later this evening—"
She stopped and studied him, shifting the sleeping baby from one shoulder to the other. "What is it, this is Wednesday so it must be Reesa's turn? Isn't your girlfriend on the ship keeping you happy?"
"I only said—"
"I know what you said." She started walking again, silent for a moment. Then, she said, "Well, why not? After all, it is your birthday."
It took eight days to pump the grain out of the ship's hold and reload it with the new cargo for the South Continent. Viktor had to be there for the last of it, because the last things winched aboard were fourteen pregnant cows and a wobbly but feisty bull calf. "Do cows get seasick?" Alice Begstine asked the handler.
The woman wiped her sweating forehead. "How do I know? Are you going to have rough weather?"
"I hope not, but you never know."
"Well, then you'll find out," the woman said grimly. "Anyway, you'd better lash them down if you do. They could fall and break their legs or something."
"It sounds like it's going to be a fun trip," Alice observed. And then, when they were actually putting out to sea and she was on the bridge next to Viktor, she said, "Shan was asking after you."
"Oh, yeah," Viktor said, concentrating on setting a course while the wind was fair. "I'm sorry about that. I meant to come and see him, but—how's he doing, anyway?"
"He's learning to talk," Alice informed him.
"That's wonderful," Viktor said, guilty but pleased. "Well, it's your watch. I think I'll look around below. And then I think I'll hit the teaching machines."
The revived talk about space travel, at least, had been an interesting development of his leave, but on the whole it hadn't been entirely a happy one. Viktor was beginning to worry a little about his family. His mother was certainly working too hard, and his father …
Well, Pal Sorricaine wasn't the man he had been on New Mayflower anymore. He was drinking again. It was because of the pain of his missing leg, he said. But what Reesa said—not right away, but reluctantly, and after keeping silence for a while, and then only because she never lied to Viktor—was that the course in astrophysics was a joke. Oh, the story about starting space travel again soon—maybe—was true enough; the council had voted it a medium priority. But the real purpose of the course was simply to give Pal Sorricaine something to do. Viktor himself had seen that the machines did most of the real teaching. They were far more patient than Pal Sorricaine, and fairer. Especially with the younger students who had never studied astrophysics before. The teaching machines were not put off by teenage sulks, or cajoled by teenage flattery. Probably the younger ones got something out of the course, but the others—well, everybody liked Pal Sorricaine, and they were willing to go to a little trouble to please him.