Bron frowned—but then, the domo would have known what they were drinking before Bron had even summoned him from his cabinet.
Bron sat in his own chair across from the Spike and thought: She is totally delightful and totally upsetting. Somehow, though, the realization had crystalized: Play the client as he might, there was no way he could fit her into the role of his younger self. Her gaucheries, enthusiasms, and eccentricities simply had nothing to do with his own early visits to the Craw’s Bellona brothers—for one thing, she simply did not despise him the way he had despised those who had escorted him there, so that, in the game of dazzling and impressing in which he was busily racking up points, she was just not playing. What am I doing here? he thought, suddenly. Twice now he had been reduced to the sweat of mortification—and probably would be so reduced again before the evening ended. But at least (he thought on) I know what to be mortified about. Both discomforts and pleasures assured him this was his territory. The sweat dried. He picked up the cold glass, sipped. And realized that, for the duration of his thoughts, the Spike had been silent. “Is something the matter?”
She lifted her eyebrows, then her chin from her meshed knuckles. “No ...”
Smiling, he said: “Are you sure? Are you positive? There’s nothing about my manner, my bearing, my clothing that you disapprove of?”
“Don’t be silly. You know your way around places like this—which makes it twice the fun. You’ve obviously taken a great deal of time with your clothes—which I thoroughly appreciate: That’s why I didn’t go with Windy and Charo. They insisted on going in their digging duds, right after work.”
“Well, the joy of a place like this is that you can come as formal or as informal as you like.”
“But if you’re going to indulge an anachronism, you might as well indulge it all the way. Really,” and she smiled, “if I were the type to get upset over anyone’s clothes, Windy would have cured me long ago.” Now she frowned. “I suppose the reason I didn’t go with them is that I know, deep down, part of his reason for coming is to be scandalous, or at least to dare anyone to be scandalized. Which can be fun, if you’re in the mood. But I have other things to do, right now—The two of you, in your youth, shared a profession.”
“Yes. I know,” Bron said, but could not, for the moment, remember how he knew. Had she alluded to it? Or had Windy?
“He has some very unpleasant memories associated with places like this.”
“Then why does he come back?”
She shrugged. “I suppose ... well, he wants to show off.”
“And be scandalous?”
Her lower lip inside her mouth, the Spike smiled. “Charo said she had a fine time. They said I should really try and come if I could.”
“Then I hope you have an equally, or even finer, time.”
She nodded. “Thank you.”
The domo, at his shoulder, announced: “Your menu ... ma’am?”
“Oh!” The Spike sat up, took the huge, velvet-backed and many-paged folder.
“... sir?”
Bron took his, trying to recall if, on Mars, they gave the menu first to the man, then the woman; or was it first to the younger, then the older; or was it the client, then the—
“Perhaps you’d like a little more air than that?” The domo reached up, snapped his fingers. The interleaved mirrors (after their ten-minute, uphill hike, only a dozen feet above them now) began to rise, turn, and fold back from the stars.
A breeze touched them.
The tablecloth’s edge brushed Bron’s thigh.
“I’ll just leave you for a minute to make your choices. When you reach your decision—” A smile, a nod—“I’ll be back.” And he was gone behind a rock.
The Spike shook her head, wonderingly. “What an amazing place!” She turned her chair (the seat swiv-eled) to look down the near slope. “I mean, I don’t think I’ve ever been in an enclosed space this large before!” It was at least six hundred yards to the top of the slope across from them. Some of the intervening space was filled with great rocks, small mountains, hillocks of grass, artificial ramps, platforms and terraced surfaces where, here and there, another table stood, tiny with distance, with or without diners bending to their meals. They could see a dozen furnace-fires where, from the equipment ranged around, the more brutal cooking was done.
Other customers, singly or in groups, accompanied by their own, black-clad domos, ambled along the paths, over the ramps. The far rise, slashed in three places by falling water, looked like some battlefield, at night, lit by a hundred scattered campfires on the dark, green, and craggy slopes. The multimirrored ceiling, as soon as their eyes drifted away thirty feet, was endlessly a-flicker with a million times the stars in any normal sky.
“Out where we come from—” the Spike’s voice brought him back—“I guess we just never have this much space to waste. Well—” She opened her menu—“what in the world” and glanced at him, up from under lowered brows, with a half-smile that brought him the political significance only seconds later, “shall we have to eat?”
And while he was trying to remember the name of that dish he’d had on his first visit to this kind of establishment in Bellona, the Spike began to read out various selections, their accompanying descriptions, the descriptions of traditional accompaniments, the small essays on the organization of meals customary for various cuisines. As Bron turned pages, “... Austrian sausage ...” caught his eye; he stared at it, trying to recall why it intrigued him. But then she said something that struck him so funny he laughed out loud. (He let the page fall over.) Then they were both laughing. He read out three selections—all of which were hysterical. Somehow, with much hilarity (and another round of Gold Flower Nectar) they constructed a meal that began with a clear suomono, followed by oysters Rockefeller, grilled quail, boeuf au saucisse en chemise—sometime amidst all this, a steam-boat of fresh vegetables arrived at one side of the table and an ice-boat of crudites at the other; the wines began with a Champa-gnoise for the oysters, then a Pommard with the quail, and a Macon with the roast.
Bron paused with his fork in a piece of the tissuey crust that had chemisee’6. the boeuf. “I love you,” he said. “Throw up the theater. Join your life to mine. Become one with me. Be mine. Let me possess you wholly.”
“Mad, marvelous man—” Carefully, with chopsticks, she lifted a broccoli spear from the top tier of bubbling broth: the coals through the steam-boat’s grill-work glowed in her gauntlet—“not on your life.”
“Why not? I love you.” He put down his fork. “Isn’t that enough?”
Gingerly, she ate her broccoli.
“Is it,” he asked, leaning forward, “that I’m just not your type? I mean physically? You’re only turned on by dwarfish little creatures who can do backflips, is that it?”
“You’re very much my type,” she said. “That’s why I’m here. On the animal line—and I do think that’s to be appreciated—you’re really most spectacular. I think large, blond, Scandinavians are quite the most gorgeous things in the world.”
“But I’m still not a monkey who can swing through the trees by his tail, or who comes to places like this in his digging duds.” He’d realized he’d been offended by her remark only halfway through his own. “Or, for that matter, a long-haired young lady who sits around and tinkles folksongs.” He hoped the smile he put on now mitigated some of what, to his ears, sounded a bit harsh. “Alas, what can I do about these minor failings?”
Her smile was slightly reproving. “You have your own charm. And your numerous rough points ... But also charm.”
“Charm enough for you to come away with me forever?”