Starliner(52)

"Not on the Empress or any other ship I've served on," Ran said calmly. "Apart from that, yes, some."

The steward brought his iced coffee. Ran raised the glass and sipped the rich, sweet fluid without taking his eyes away from Streseman. There was a touch of coconut milk in the drink.

"I . . ." the youth said into his glass again. "I haven't. Much, I mean. But I've met a really wonderful girl. Just by accident. Only her father is a government official from Nevasa and I, ah, I'm from Grantholm."

Ran set his glass down carefully. "I can see that might be difficult," he said with equal care.

"Oh, it's not, not really!" Streseman insisted. "I mean, we're both against the war. It's stupid and worse! Horrible, really. Only—"

He paused, staring at his drink while synthetic crickets chirped in the synthetic thatch above the table.

"Her father doesn't approve?" Ran suggested quietly.

"No, it's not that either," Streseman said. "Maybe—well, if he knew, I suppose he'd forbid Oanh to see me, but he doesn't pay her any attention. He's too busy with his staff, planning—"

He gestured broadly, angrily. "Planning whatever they're going to do on Tellichery. He doesn't care about his daughter at all."

If he didn't care, boy, Ran thought, he'd have left her on Nevasa. But you're young.

"If that's not the problem . . . ?" Ran said aloud.

Streseman prodded his ice with the straw. "She doesn't know I'm from Grantholm," he said miserably. "I told her I was an engineering student on Earth—"

He looked up sharply. "And that's true! But—"

Face and voice lost animation again. "You see, it just never came up that I was from Grantholm. And now I'm afraid to tell her."

Ran sipped his coffee. "Tell her," he said gently.

"She'll think I've been hiding it," Streseman said. "That I'm a spy or something. She won't see me again."

"That's possible," Ran agreed. "But what she does is her business. It's your business to tell her the truth."

"I don't know why I'm worried," the youth muttered. "I'll never see her after we reach Grantholm, anyway. I—"

He swallowed. "I'll be assigned to my father's old unit, the Seventeenth Commando. I—don't expect to survive the war."

"Ah . . ." said Ran. Now he was the one who was uncomfortable. "You don't approve of the war yourself?"

Streseman straightened. "I know my duty," he said stiffly. "Stresemans have always known their duty."

Ran finished his coffee and stood up. "Then do your duty, Mr. Streseman," he said. "If you can face death, then you can face one young girl."

The youth began to laugh. "Yes, that's so simple, isn't it?" he said. "Only hard to do."

He grimaced. "But I will do it, when we land. I don't—"

He shrugged and flared his elbows. "Your ship is confining, for all her size. I don't want that when I tell Oanh."

Streseman rose and shook Ran's hand. "Thank you, Lieutenant," he said. "I—you have helped me see my duty."

"Women don't always make a fuss over the same things that men do," Ran said. That was fair, after all, because women certainly did fuss over things that men could take or leave . . . and generally left. "Good luck, though."

As Ran walked away, he thought about Lady Scour. Good luck to both of us, Streseman. Whatever that means.

* * *

"Ah," said Wade, as Reed bowed and gestured him forward. "So this is your surprise."

The doorway was a high arch bordered by SHOOTING GALLERY in large letters. The sign's color metamorphosed slowly through the optical spectrum. At the moment, the letters were a green gradually being absorbed by its own blue component.

"We thought that with all your shooting experience," Da Silva said, "that you'd like to try the facilities here. We've booked the gallery for the next hour."

Dewhurst gave Wade a hard, humorless grin. "Yes," he said. "Lizard hunting on Hobilo, wasn't it?"

Without waiting for a reply, Dewhurst stepped forward. The "door" quivered about him. It was a hologram rather than a physical panel.

"You know," Wade said with a puzzled expression as he followed, "I don't recall mentioning that to you fellows. The lizard hunting, I mean."

"Don't believe you did, old man," said Belgeddes. "That was just before the Long Troubles broke out, when the Prophet's boys were trying to get you to run guns for them, wasn't it?"

"That was it, all right," Wade murmured from the other side of the shimmering curtain. "Not the sort of business a chap wants to dwell on."