He looked at the empty platter before them. “I’ve got to go now. Thanks for everything.”
“The pleasure was mine.” Ross watched his undernourished figure head for the station. He swore a little, and then buckled down to some hard thinking. Helena was his key to this world. He’d have to have a long skull-session or two with her; he couldn’t be constantly prompting her or there would be serious trouble. She would be the front and he would be the very inconspicuous brains of the outfit, trailing humbly behind. But was she capable of absorbing a brand-new, rather complicated concept? She seemed to be, he told himself uncomfortably, in love with him. That would help considerably....
Helena and Pilot Breuer showed up, walking with a languor that suggested a large and pleasant meal disposed of. Helena’s first words disposed with shocking speed of Ross’s doubts that she was able to acquire a brand-new sociological concept. They were: “Ah, there you are, my dear. Did the boy bring you something or other to eat?”
“Yes. Thanks. Very thoughtful of you,” he said pointedly, with one eye on Breuer’s reaction. There was none; he seemed to have struck the right note.
“Pilot Breuer,” said Helena blandly, “thinks I’d enjoy an evening doing the town with her and a few friends.”
“But the Cavallo people——”
“Ross,” she said gently, “don’t nag.”
He shut up. And thought: wait until I get her out into space. If I get her out into space. She’d be a damned fool to leave this wacked-up culture....
Breuer was saying, with an altogether too-innocent air, “I’d better get you two settled in a hotel for the night; then I’ll pick up Helena and a few friends and we’ll show her what old Novj Grad has to offer in the way of night life. Can’t have her batting around the universe saying Azor’s sidewalks are rolled up at 2100, can we? And then she can do her trading or whatever it is with Cavallo bright and early tomorrow, eh?”
Ross realized that he was being jollied out of an attack of the sulks. He didn’t like it.