"I'm signed up for Astronomy 101," Isherwood pointed out.
The faculty advisor snorted. "A snap course. A breather, after you've studied the same stuff in Celestial Navigation. What's the matter, Ish? Scared of liberal arts?"
Isherwood shook his head. "Uh-unh. Not interested. No time. And that Astronomy course isn't a breather. Different slant from Cee Nav—they won't be talking about stars as check points, but as things in themselves." Something seemed to flicker across his face as he said it.
The advisor missed it; he was too engrossed in his argument. "Still a snap. What's the difference, how you look at a star?"
Isherwood almost winced. "Call it a hobby," he said. He looked down at his watch. "Come on, Dave. You're not going to convince me. You haven't convinced me any of the other times, either, so you might as well give up, don't you think? I've got a half hour before I go on the job. Let's go get some beer."
The advisor, not much older than Isherwood, shrugged, defeated. "Crazy," he muttered. But it was a hot day, and he was as thirsty as the next man.
The bar was air conditioned. The advisor shivered, half grinned, and softly quoted:
|
"Though I go bare, take ye no care, I am nothing a-cold; I stuff my skin so full within Of jolly good ale and old." |
"Huh?" Ish was wearing the look with which he always reacted to the unfamiliar.
The advisor lifted two fingers to the bartender and shrugged. "It's a poem; about four hundred years old, as a matter of fact."