Page:Fantastic Volume 08 Number 01.djvu/98

 tips and they go and let some space bum knock them up! Why?"

"Maybe they fall in love," Cross said.

"Love!" Obronski spat. "You've got a lot to learn, boy, even if you did make Second Mate on your fourth run. There's no love in space, and the only woman you'll ever have is the one you've got money enough to pay for!"

"Sure, I know," Cross said. He raised his eyes from the gangplank, looked out across the tarmac to where the rumpled hills formed green and purple preludes to the majestic line of mountains. I wonder what they're really like, he thought Some day I'll find out.

"The Plenipotentiary from New Jericho presents his compliments, my lady," the house-mother said. "He was quite intrigued by her ladyship's film sequence and begs the honor of her company."

"For how long?" the Lady Berenice asked wearily.

"For tonight only. He is leaving WineWomanandSong in the morning."

"Very well."

The house-mother withdrewdrew, and after a moment the Lady Berenice heard the lift door sigh closed. She sat down to wait, wondering if she would hate this one as much as she had hated all the others, if she would hate herself tomorrow as much as she had hated herself on all the other tomorrows.

Presently, she heard the lift door sigh open, and then footsteps in the corridor. The knock—

She got up and opened the door. The Plenipotentiary from New Jericho was in his late nineties; toupéd, and refurbished to pass for a man of fifty. He was a far cry from the Emperor of the Universe.

The Lady Berenice repressed a shudder. "Come in," she said

New Tokyo was off the beaten path of the regular runs, but his new job with Falcon Lines took him to many of the out of the way places. He walked through the narrow streets of Rakuen, past the tile façades of the enchanting houses, past the foyers where the mama sans sat, wearing their timeless smiles. Pretty kimonoed girls leaned out over low balconies, laughing down with starlight in their hair.

He remembered a passage he had read a long time ago, 98