"Thanks, chief. Now that this fracas is finally over—if it is—I suppose that you'll have to take over as president of the Galactic Council?"
"I suppose so—after we clean Lyrane VIII, that you've been holding me away from so long—but I don't relish the thought. And you'll be Co-ordinator Kinnison."
"Uh-huh"—gloomily. "By Klono, I hate to put my Grays away! I'm not going to do it, either, until after we're married and really settled down onto the job."
"Of course not. You'll be wearing them for some time yet, I'm thinking." Haynes' tone was distinctly envious. "Getting your job settled down into a routine one will take a long, long time. It will take years even to find out what it is really going to be."
"That's so, too," Kinnison brightened visibly. "Well, clear ether, President Haynes!" and he turned away, whistling unmelodiously—in fact, somewhat raucously—through his teeth.
XXIII.
At Base Hospital it was midnight. The two largest of Thrale's four major moons were visible, close together in the zenith, almost at the full; shining brilliantly from a cloudless, star-besprinkled sky upon the magnificent grounds.
Fountains splashed and tinkled musically. Masses of flowering shrubs, bordering meandering walks, flooded the still air with a perfume almost cloying in its intensity. No one who has once smelled the fragrance of Thralian thorn flower at midnight will ever forget it—it is as though the poignant sweetness of the mountain syringa has been blended harmoniously with the heavy, entrancing scent of the jasmine and the appealing pungency of the lily of the valley. Statues of gleaming white stone and of glinting metal were spaced infrequently over acres and acres of springy, close-clipped turf. Trees, not overhigh but massive of bole and of tremendous spread and thickness of foliage, cast shadows of impenetrable black.
"QX, Chris?" Kinnison Lensed the thought as he arrived on the grounds. She had known that he was coming. "Kinda late, I know, but I wanted to see you, and I know that you don't have to punch the clock."