“Yes, I do—! But…”
“But you don’t. It is always so when there is choice. Sometimes we make the right choice, and though we’re afraid we go on with it anyway. And sometimes we make the wrong choice, and go on with it anyway because we’re afraid not to. Have you changed your mind?”
“But I can’t change—”
“Why not? We will leave them a message. They will go on and pick up their second compatible.”
“Is it really that easy?”
“No… not quite. But we can do it, if you want to stay.”
Silence stretched; Maris sent a tray away, began to wipe glasses, fumbled.
“But I should.”
“Brandy. If you go only out of obligation, I will tell you something. I want to retire. I was going to resign this trip, at Sanalareta; but if I do that, Mactav will need a new Best Friend. She’s getting old and cantankerous, just like me; these past few years her behavior has begun to show the strain she is under. She must have someone who can feel her needs. I was going to ask you, I think you understand her best; but I thought you wanted this other thing more. If not, I ask you now to become the new Best Friend of the Who Got Her.”
“But Harkané, you’re not old—”
“I am eighty-six. I’m too old for the sporting life anymore; I will become a Mactav; I’ve been lucky, I have an opportunity.”
“Then… yes—I do want to stay! I accept the position.” In spite of himself Maris looked up, saw her face shining with joy and release. “Brandy—?” “Maris, I’m not going!”
“I know!” He laughed, joined them.
“Soldier.” He looked up, dark met dark, Harkané‘s eyes that saw more than surfaces. “This will be the last time that I see you; I am retiring, you know. You have been very good to me all these years, helping me be young; you are very kind to us all… Now, to say goodbye, I do something in return.” She took his hand, placed it firmly over Brandy’s, shining with rings on the counter. “I give her back to you. Brandy—join us soon, we’ll celebrate.” She rose mildly and moved away to the crowded room.
Their hands twisted, clasped tight on the counter.
Brandy closed her eyes. “God, I’m so glad!”
“So am I.”
“Only the poems…”
“Remember once you told me, ‘you can see it all a hundred times, and never see it all’?”
A quicksilver smile. “And it’s true… Oh, Maris, now this is my last night! And I have to spend it with them, to celebrate.”
“I know. There’s—no way I can have you forever, I suppose. But it’s all right.” He grinned. “Everything’s all right. What’s twenty-five years compared to two hundred?”
“It’ll seem like three.”
“It’ll seem like twenty-five. But I can stand it…”
He stood it, for twenty-four more years, looking up from the bar with sudden eagerness every time new voices and the sound of laughter spilled into the dim blue room.
“Soldier! Soldier, you’re still—”
“We missed you like—”
“—two whole weeks of—”
“—want to buy a whole sack for my own—”
The crew of the DOM—428 pressed around him, their fingers proving he was real; their lips brushed a cheek that couldn’t feel and one that could, long loose hair rippling over the agate bar. He hugged four at a time. “Aralea! Vlasa! El-sah, what the hell have you done to your hair now—and Ling-shan! My God, you’re pretty, like always. Cathe—” The memory bank never forgot a shining fresh-scrubbed face, even after thirty-seven years. Their eyes were very bright as he welcomed them, and their hands left loving prints along the agate bar.
“—still have your stone bar; I’m so glad, don’t ever sell it—”
“And what’s new with you?” Elsah gasped, and ecstatic laughter burst over him.
He shook his head, hands up, laughing too. “—go prematurely deaf? First round on the house; only one at a time, huh?”
Elsah brushed strands of green-tinged waist-length hair back from her very green eyes. “Sorry, Soldier. We’ve just said it all to each other, over and over. And gee, we haven’t seen you for four years!” Her belt tossed blue-green sparks against her green quilted flight-suit.
“Four years? Seems more like thirty-seven.” And they laughed again, appreciating, because it was true. “Welcome back to the Tin Soldier. What’s your pleasure?”
“Why you of course, me darlin‘,” said black-haired Brigit, and she winked.
His smile barely caught on a sharp edge; he winked back. “Just the drinks are on the house, lass.” The smile widened and came unstuck.
More giggles.
“Ach, a pity!” Brigit pouted. She wore a filigree necklace, like the galaxy strung over her dark-suited breast. “Well, then, I guess a little olive beer, for old time’s sake.”
“Make it two.”
“Anybody want a pitcher?”
“Sure, why not?”
“Come sit with us in a while, Soldier. Have we got things to tell you!”
He jammed the clumsy pitcher under the spigot and pulled down as they drifted away, watching the amber splatter up its frosty sides.
“Alta, hi! Good timing! How are things on the Extra Sexy Old—115?”
“Oh, good enough; how’s Chrysalis—has it changed much?”
The froth spilled out over his hand; he let the lever jerk up, licked his fingers and wiped them on his apron.
“It’s gone wild this time, you should see what they’re wearing for clothes. My God, you would not believe—”
He hoisted the slimy pitcher onto the bar and set octagonal mugs on a tray.
“Aralea, did you hear what happened to the—”
He lifted the pitcher again, up to the tray’s edge.
“—Who Got her—709?”
The pitcher teetered.
“Their Mactav had a nervous breakdown on landing at Sanalareta. Branduin died, the poet, the one who wrote—”
Splinters and froth exploded on the agate bar and slobbered over the edge, tinkle, crash.
Stunned blank faces turned to see Soldier, hands moving ineffectually in a puddle of red-flecked foam. He began to brush it off onto the floor, looking like a stricken adolescent. “Sorry… sorry about that.”
“Ach, Soldier, you really blew it!”
“Got a mop? Here, we’ll help you clean it up… hey, you’re bleeding—?” Brigit and Ling-shan were piling chunks of pitcher onto the bar.
Soldier shook his head, fumbling a towel around the one wrist that bled. “No… no, thanks, leave it, huh? I’ll get you another pitcher… it doesn’t matter. Go on!” They looked at him. “I’ll send you a pitcher; thanks.” He smiled.
They left, the smile stopped. Fill the pitcher. He filled a pitcher, his hand smarting. Clean up, damn it. He cleaned up, wiping off disaster while the floor absorbed and fangs of glass disappeared under the bar. As the agate bartop dried he saw the white-edged shatter flower, tendrils of hairline crack shooting out a hand-breadth on every side. He began to track them with a rigid finger, counting softly… She loved me, she loved me not, she loved me—
“Two cepheids and a wine, Soldier!”
“Soldier, come hear what we saw on Chrysalis if you’re through!”
He nodded and poured, blinking hard. Goddamn sweet-smoke in here… goddamn everything! Elsah was going out the door with a boy in tight green pants and a starmap-tattooed body. He stared them into fluorescent blur. And remembered Brandy going out the door too many times…