Walther understood the smile. He was a young man, but he was no fool. In the trading centers of Andromeda many women smiled at him that way when they learned he was a Von Koenigsburg from Neustadt.
He dunked the pastry in the black coffee, took a generous bite and settled back to be alone with his thoughts. An earth woman was not an essential part of the dream that had taken him on this quixotic voyage. True, there might be a woman who would come to love him enough so that she would leave the old world culture and graciousness of Earth for the colonial life on the immense frontier of Andromeda. But, being of an age where the dreams of youth are merging with practicality, Walther rather doubted he would find such a woman.
He didn't doubt that the rest of his dream would come gloriously to life.
While the shuttleship whirled without motion through the voidless void of hyper space, Walther smiled at the prospect ahead. Six months to immerse himself in the wonder of Earth's culture! Six months to enjoy the whole of it, instead of nourishing the few precious fragments kept alive by his family through the first centuries of colonial life in the new galaxy.
Delightful evenings at the symphony and the opera! Beethoven, Verdi, Brahms, Schubert and Wagner! Wagner!—Perhaps he would even be able to attend a performance of Die Meistersinger. Walther smiled to himself. His great, great grandfather, who had first discovered the incredibly rich mines, forests and black loam of Neustadt, had started the tradition of naming the first son Walther, after the whimsical Meistersinger, Walther von der Vogelweide.
Then there would be leisurely afternoons in the great libraries and museums! All the great classics of literature and art, instead of the few faded pictures and the handful of volumes in the high beamed library of his family castle. The infrequent ships that traveled between the fringes of the two galaxies had little room for books and art treasures. Three years ago, on the occasion of Walther's twenty-first birthday, his mother had broken down in tears as she told of trying for half a decade to order a set of Goethe as a coming of age present for him. But after the request had finally reached Earth, some clerk had garbled the order and sent a four-page booklet that apparently was some kind of puzzle-book for children.
Now he could steep himself in Goethe, Schiller, Dickens, Maupassant, Tolstoi!
And best of all the conversation! The delicate art of communicating mind with mind! What tales he would have to tell when he sat again in the family banquet hall! How his mother's eyes would sparkle! How his father would roar with delight as he recounted some rapier-like bon mot....
But all this was only the small part of the dream. The small, personal part. The dream itself was so much bigger, as big as a dream must be to carry over from youth to manhood. He had first dreamed it as a boy, sitting on the hearth rug with his knees tucked up under his chin, watching the great leaping fire, while behind him in the shadows his grandfather played on the old violin. Meditation, his grandfather had called it. By a long ago composer of Earth, a man strangely named Thais. His grandfather couldn't play very much of it, but the fragment had lodged in Walther's heart and would be there to the end of his life.
Walther's dream was indeed a grand dream, shaped of a melody and leaping flames. He would not spend his lifetime wresting more wealth from the riches of Neustadt. That had been done for him; the challenge was gone. But someday he would make the journey to Earth, and bring back with him enough of the beauty and culture to make Neustadt a miniature Earth, out on the rim of Andromeda.