That cheered him. A girl can punch any kind of a button a man can, and a lot of them knew what buttons to punch, and why. Say she could find fifty girls....
He had a slightly better chance to talk to his father before the banquet at the Executive Palace that evening. They shared the same suite at the Ritz-Gartner, and even welcoming committees seldom chase their victims from bedroom to bath.
"Yes, I know all about it," Rodney Maxwell said bitterly. "I was home, a couple of weeks ago. Flora simply will not speak to me, and your mother begged me, in tears, to quit everything we're doing here. I tried to give her some idea of what would happen if I dropped this, even supposing I could; she wouldn't listen to me." He finished putting the studs in his shirt. "You still think this is worth what it's costing us?"
"You saw the views we sent back. There's work on Koshchei for a million people, at least. Why, even these two makeshift ships they're putting together here at Storisende are giving work, one way or another, to almost a thousand. Think what things will be like a year from now, if this keeps on."
Rodney Maxwell gave a wry laugh. "Didn't know I had a real Simon-pure altruist for a son."
"Pardner, when you call me that, smile."
"I am smiling. With some slight difficulty."
He didn't think well of the banquet. Back in Litchfield, Senta would have fired half her human help and taken a sledgehammer to her robo-chef for a meal like that. Even his father's camp cook would have been ashamed of it. And there were more speeches.
President Vyckhoven managed to get hold of him and Yves Jacquemont afterward, and steered them into his private study.
"Have you any real reason for thinking that Merlin might be on Koshchei?" the Planetary President asked.