"Say, Bill," Joe raised his gaze from the paper and turned to his office-mate who was also checking classwork, "you know what Avery said today? When I tried to compliment him on yesterday's quadrangulations he glowered as if I'd insulted him and said, 'Young man, I was managing billions before jets were invented. Get on with orbits.' What a character...."
... Elbert Avery worked feverishly over the pile of papers before him. Today's lesson had included a few facts necessary for his calculations. To make room for new pages, he shoved aside Harling and Bame's Astrogation Handbook. "Matches for irresponsible brats to play with," he sneered at the book, "and the sooner they get their tootsies burned the sooner they'll learn to leave this stuff alone." He clenched a fist. "Damned if they're going to bankrupt one planet they can't run to settle another one they don't need." He picked up a stilo and plunged back into the determination of the exact point on the course, the precise moment after turnover, at which, with the slightest increase in deceleration he could send the Colonia streaking irrevocably into the sun....
The Quarter-Way Party, three months and four days out in space, was an unqualified failure, according to Arnold Forsberg, the Colonia's recreation director. Closeted with Captain Daneshaw in the conference room the following evening, he confessed, "Only about eighty people showed at all. They wouldn't dance, they wouldn't sing; only about three tables of bridge and one of eincheesistein, and those were the champions who play every day anyhow. They wouldn't even eat—just picked at the special non-diet refreshments we thought would be such a hit. Most of them didn't bother to dress formally. They just wandered around. Honestly Tim, with ten more months to go I don't know what we're going to do."
"Maybe they have other things on their minds," Tim placated. "First Night Out Party was as gay as they come. A lot of the women have been studying pretty hard, you know; and we've all been conditioned to taking things calmly for the last fifty years at least."
"You think maybe we'd better cut out the Turnover's Over Ball and the Three Quarters Party? I'll be hanged if I can stand a couple more flops. It's bad for general morale."
"You're taking this too seriously. Why not start working on the next shindig right now—you know—contests and such to have final playoffs at the party and such. Get them to start thinking about it. After all, you don't even know why there were so few...." The ping-ping-ping of a tiny bell indicated pilot-room intercom and Tim flipped a switch.
A plasticoid box on the wall spoke in Elbert Avery's dry tones. "Off duty now, Tim. You want to see me?"
Daneshaw spoke to the box on his desk, "Forsberg's here," he said. "You might come up and give us your opinion on the party. Were you there?"
"No, I was here. What happened, Arnie? The little ladies and gentlemen get rough over their grog?"