Starliner(51)

The young man at the table nearest the entrance was Franz Streseman. Ran recognized him because the Grantholmer had been spending time with Ambassador Lin's daughter. All three Staff Side officers were nervous about the situation, though thus far it seemed to be a young male and female getting together on a voyage; which was as common as breathing, if not quite as harmless.

"Our mistress requests that you accept the honor of her presence," said the maid in a yellow outfit. The Szgranians' six arms and gauzy dress made them look rather like butterflies.

"You may take a reasonable time to prepare yourself with ablutions and ceremonial garb," said the maid wearing green as pale as a Luna moth's wings. "Does your species wear ceremonial garb?"

"Or perhaps you can write a poem," added yellow. "It is traditional for those honored by the clan mistress to thank her with a poem."

Half of Ran's mind concerned itself with the question of how the maids had found him. That was simple. They—or Lady Scour—had asked the ship's AI to locate Lt. Randall Colville; and the question was as pointless as it was easy to answer. All it did was to keep Ran from thinking about the real problems.

According to Ran's hypnogogue crash course in Szgranian culture, "honor with her presence" meant exactly what Ran would have assumed it did had the summons come from a wealthy, bored human female. And, because Lady Scour was a passenger, his response was going to have to be the same also.

"I'm very sorry," he said aloud. "I am honored beyond words by your mistress's notice, but because of my duty to Trident Starlines, I am not able to respond appropriately."

The maids looked at one another in disbelief. One of them tittered in a high-pitched voice, covering her lips with four of her hands. The other thrust her arms straight out to the sides, the intervals as precise as those scribed around a circle by a compass set to the radius. Ran recognized that as a gesture of utter horror; suited, for example, to a high-caste female who learned that her lover had disgraced himself with a mere servant.

"We can't tell her that!" pale green cried.

"You must," said Ran. "Your mistress understands duty. She will understand that I have my duties, so long as I'm aboard the Empress of Earth, and that I will be faithful to my charge."

The Szgranian maids scampered off together, looking more like butterflies than ever with their plumes rising and falling as they ran.

"Bravo!" a passenger called, half-seriously.

Ran glanced around. He was unpleasantly aware that though he'd kept his voice low, the maids had spoken loud enough for everyone within several meters to hear. To a Szgranian, there was no need for privacy. It was literally an affair of state.

Ran smiled and gave an exaggerated shrug. As he started to walk away—he tried to chat with the Purser's Assistant on every watch, to get that officer's different perspective on the voyage—Franz Streseman called, "Excuse me, Lieutenant Colville? Might I speak with you for a moment?"

"Of course, Mr. Streseman," Ran said as he stepped into the Cochin. "Have you been having a good voyage?"

A potential human problem who wanted to talk became a first priority for Staff Side.

"Oh," said the youth as he sat down again. "You know my name?"

"We try to learn the passengers' names," Ran said, which only by implication was a lie. To the brown-jacketed steward who appeared at his side, he added, "A coffee for me, please."

Autoservers had their place. The unit in every First Class cabin could handle virtually any drink demand, as well as supply food better than that available in most groundside hotels. Some of the Empress's public areas were served in the same coldly efficient fashion—but there were good commercial reasons for human stewards as well.

Many of those who could afford star travel felt that ordering humans around was a necessary way to display power. Also—and somewhat less demeaning of the species—many planets simply didn't have the technological base to build and maintain service robots. Passengers from such worlds were uncomfortable when faced with machinery they didn't understand. It was no business of Trident Starlines to make a large proportion of its wealthy passengers feel inferior.

"I, ah, have a problem," Streseman said as he peered intently into his glass. He swizzled the ice and dregs with his straw. "You—"

He looked at Ran in concern. "I don't mean to be personal."

"I can live with it," Ran said, smiling. "Tell me."

"You've had a lot of experience with women, haven't you, sir?" Streseman said. He held the straw precisely upright as if someone was about to drive it into the glass with a maul.