"You can dry it," Tink said. "I got two. And a frozen-dried rose."
"The hardwoods come from Earth," the tour guide said, and went on to explain the difference between tropics and colder climates, and how solar radiation falling on tilted planets made seasons—the latter with reference to visual aids from a tour station. First time the proposition had ever made sense to him.
Then came the flowers, in the evolution of things, the wild-flowers and finally the ones humans had had a hand in making… like Tink's roses, hundreds and hundreds of colors. Individual perfumes, different as the colors. The reality of the sugar flowers. The absolute, sense-overwhelming profusion of petals.
It smelled… unidentifiable. There was something the scent and the assault of color did that the human body needed. There was something the whole garden did that the human body couldn't ignore. He forgot for a minute or two that he was going back onto Corinthian, and that if things had gone differently he might have had a hope of his own ship.
But that might come around again.
There might be a chance. There might be…
Fool's thought, he told himself, and felt Saby's hand on his arm, and listened to Saby talk about the roses, and the jonquils and iris and the tulips and hyacinths. Figure that the cornfields and the potatoes were much more important, yielding up their secrets to the labs as well as supplying stations and spacers direct…
Interesting statistics about the value they were to humankind. About human civilizations riding botanical adaptations to ascendancy.
But less inspiring than the sensory level… and he was glad that the tour wended its final course back to the whispering of the tall trees, back to that sweet-breathing shadow. His legs ached from walking. Felt as if they'd made the entire circuit of the station.
Maybe they had. But he took the invitation the guide offered, to linger a moment on the path. He didn't want to go out, where, he'd been thinking the last half hour, a whole contingent of Corinthiancrew must be waiting for him.
Maybe Christian, too. Probably Christian—madder than hell.
But a ship was a place. A station wasn't, in his book. He'd had his taste of dodging the station authorities just trying to evade questions from the botanical gardens staff. He didn't want to do it dockside and in and out of hiring offices, trying to stay out of station-debt, which, if he got into that infamous System… no.
Which meant a return to Corinthianwas rescue, in a way, and he was willing to go. But he didn't want to lose the souvenir leaf—the garden was a place he wanted to remember and wasn't sure he'd see again. So, fearing a little over-enthusiasm on the part of the arresting party he was sure was waiting, he asked Saby to keep the leaf safe for him. "Sure," she said, and slipped it into her sleeve-pocket.
So the tour was done, and he walked out with Tink and Saby.
Didn't find the reception party—and he was so sure it existed he stopped and stood in the doorway, looking for it.
"She's a pretty one," the ticketer at the door said—to him, he realized then, and then, in the racing of his bewildered wits, remembered the lie he'd told, about waiting for a girlfriend.
"Yeah," he said, and only wanted to get out of there before some other remark started trouble, but Saby laughed, took the cue and hooked her arm into his, steering him away and on, toward the doors.
"Tink," she said, "it's all right. You don't know where we are. Right? We'll make board call. Captain's orders."
Tink didn't look certain about that. Hewasn't certain about this 'don't know where we are' and 'captain's orders'… not that Saby was likely to use physical force. But Saby clearly had the upper hand in the information division, and hecould be in deep trouble, for all he knew, headed for one more ship like Christophe Martin.
Tink said, looking straight at him. "Tom,—if she says it's so, it's so. If she says do, you do it. All right? Is that all right?"
Tink meant it. Tink meant it a hundred percent, like a nervous mama turning her kid over to a stranger she almost trusted, and he had it clear who was in what role in Tink's book: if he did anything Saby could complain of, Tink was going to find him, he had no question.
"Yeah," he said, and meant it. "No problems. I wantto go back to the ship. I'm willing to go. " It finally occurred to him to say that, and he thought at least Tink would believe him.
"Come on," Saby said, tugging on the arm still linked with hers, and he had the momentary, panicked thought that if anything happened to Saby, if any remote, unpredictable accident happened to Saby Perrault, he was a dead man, not alone in Tink's book, but with the rest of Corinthian, the same law that, had brought Sprite'screw to Marie's defense, however belated, the same that defended every merchanter on dockside and made, stations skittish of any challenge to ship-law, if two ships decided to settle a problem, or if, however rarely, a spacer disappeared off a dockside. Saby could call down all of Corinthian, hire-ons the same as born-crew, he got that clear and clean from Tink.
And he was, on those grounds, as much a prisoner in Saby's light, cheerful grip as he would have been in the hands of the delegation he'd expected.
He didn't see where Tink went. Maybe to the shops, maybe to another lift. But Saby coded Blue 9/20 on the lift pad where they stopped. The car took a moment or two arriving.
"That was nice," Saby said, hugging his arm tight. "It's always different, the gardens. I try to go at least once. I don't want to be on a planet. I really don't like the thought of infalling. The gardens are really just close enough for me. They do weather sometimes. I think that's just on the morning tour. They say you can plan on getting wet."
"I'm not going to run away," he said. "You can let go."
She didn't let go. She kept it physical—meaning knock her down if he wanted to run. And you could die for that, if Tink got hold of you. "I'll take you back to the ship," she said, "if you really want."
"What's my choice?"
"The Aldebaran. I talked to Austin. He's just really pissed at Christian. He said it's my call. The Aldebaran'sa really nice place. Good food. Class One. You tell me you won't do anything stupid and you can stay there and we can have first-class food and soak up the latest vids. No sex in the offer, understand, just a place to be for a few days."
He was relieved at the no-sex part. Wasn't a mach' thing to be relieved at. Or maybe it was. Human dignity. If you reckoned that. He didn't like being shoved, ordered, ultimatumed, or kidnapped. He'd grown very touchy about kidnapped.
"Why?" he asked.
But the car came, and they got in, with two other riders aboard. Saby smiled. He smiled. Acted easy. The other passengers did, clearly romantically inclined, hand in hand. Everybody smiled at everybody. Saby hung on to his arm and his nerves were strung tight as wire, the whole short distance out to Blue 9/20, where they got off and the other spacers stayed.
"What's the deal?" he asked, then, in the brief privacy they had as they walked.
"The offer?"
"The sleepover. The fancy food. You."
"I told you. I don't come with the room."
"Yeah, that's fine. I don't, either. But why?"
"Because you're not a fool. Because Christian's got it coming, and Austin's pissed. That's enough."
"I don't see it."
"Do you dance?"
"Do I dance?"
"I know this restaurant. They've got a view, this huge real view of the stars from the dance floor. I can teach you."
He'd never. He'd never imagined. He'd never, in his life. Saby was a tumbling infall of propositions and changes of vector he'd never, ever, expected to deal with.