“We’ll be glad to, Vesta, and thanks a lot,” Joan said, flashing a thought at Cloud to let her handle this thing her own way, “and I imagine the others would be, too, but . . . well, it’s for you, you know, and we might be intruding. . . .”
“Why, not at all!” Vesta waved the objection away with an airy flirt of her tail. “You’re friends of mine! And everybody’s real friends are always welcome, you know, everywhere. And it’ll be small and quiet; only six or eight hundred are being asked, they say. . . .” she paused for a moment: “. . . of course, after it gets around that we have you there, a couple of thousand or so strangers will come in too; but they’ll all smell nice, so it’ll be QX.”
“How do you know what they’ll smell like?” Cloud asked.
“Why, they’ll smell like our crowd, of course. If they didn’t they wouldn’t want to come in. It’s QX, then?”
“For us two, yes; but of course we can’t speak for the others.”
“Thanks, you wonderful people; I’ll go ask them right now.”
“Joan, have you blown your stack completely?” Cloud demanded. “Small—quiet—six or eight hundred invited—a couple of thousand or so gate-crashers—what do you want to go to a brawl like that for?”
“The chance is too good to miss—it’s priceless. . . .” She paused, then added, obliquely: “Storm, have you any idea at all of what Vesta thinks of you? You haven’t snooped, I’m sure.”
“No, and I don’t intend to.”
“Maybe you ought to,” Joan snickered a little, “except that it would inflate your ego too much. It’s hard to describe. It’s not exactly love—and not exactly worship, either god-worship or hero-worship. It isn’t exactly adoration, but it’s very much stronger than mere admiration. A mixture of all these, perhaps, and half a dozen others, coupled with a simply unbelievable amount of pride that you are her friend. It’s a peculiarly Vegian thing, that Tellurians simply do not feel. But here’s why I’m so enthused. It has been over twenty years since any non-Vegian has attended one of these uniquely Vegian parties except as an outsider, and a Vegian party with outsiders looking on isn’t a Vegian party at all. But we Storm, will be going as insiders!”