"Ah, those. I've always liked the Mark Six. Solid construction. I've been Destroyed maybe half the time in the Mark Sixes. Each one of the Marks has its own personality—I've always thought so. I don't suppose you remember the old Mark Two? That was a long time ago. I've been around. We got lost in one once. It picked a pseudo-fault line and ... well, never mind. Earth the same, I guess?"
"Hasn't changed."
"I don't know when I'll get back," the general said. The statement seemed to dangle as though it were an unfinished question.
"The new detectors have put Miracastle on the fringe of things."
"I've followed the work," the general said. "I try to keep up. It involves a new concept of mass variation, doesn't it?"
"It just about makes it uneconomical to colonize a two-stage planet any more. Or to keep one going."
The general's eyelids flickered. His body moved beneath the wrinkled folds of the surface suit. Cigar smoke curled in the still air.
Mr. Tucker said, "You must have been aware that it would not have been a great loss to have evacuated Miracastle."
The general shuffled in silence. "Yes, sir, I knew the background. It's part of my job to know things like that. You'll find, sir, that I have a strong sense of responsibility. If it's part of my job, I'll know about it."
General Max Shorter abruptly stood and for a moment was motionless, a man deformed and diminished in stature by the ill-fitting surface suit. Expressionless, he looked down, without psychological advantage, at the seated civilian holding the partially smoked cigar.