He got up from the desk, stretched a little and went across the office to the cooler in the opposite wall. His feet made no noise; he had that quiet tread that all cats, a few men and some women achieve. His hand interrupted the automatic cellgard and a tiny, almost hidden door in the wall swung wide. He reached up, poked his hand in the cooler, felt around. A little smile came into his eyes. He took his hand out of the cooler, got up on tiptoes and looked inside. No roses. Not even one rose.
Not even half of a rose.
Chuckling, he went back to the desk and jabbed a finger at the button over Supplies and Control.
"Hell-hips!" he rapped. "Where's all that well known and demonstrated efficiency I've had to rake out of my ears?"
The narrow face lit up the Master Screen once more. It looked bored now. "Mr. Radek, there was something?"
"Yeah. Something." Tony's voice dropped, got deadly soft. "How many weeks since you checked the cooler, boy? There aren't any ritual roses."
"There—there aren't any?"
"That's right, Mr. Clacker. Now get away from that screen. I'm reporting this to Central Direction." His finger jammed down on the Supplies and Control button. He watched the Master Screen go blank and grinned. He thought, "Shake a little, Mr. Clacker, shake a little," because he didn't dare even whisper to himself.
He sat down at the desk again and thought of something. His finger went out, touched the button on the screen on the left—the Portal Waiting screen.
She was still there, hunched up in one of the chairs like a small child somebody had left in an interplanet waiting room and then gone away and forgotten. Tony frowned once more. Damn that dame, she was spoiling his nights.