"A few things. I keep track of most everybody."
He took her slender hand, brown in his angular fist, that was pale from his space gloves. "Gimp, first," he said.
"Still on Mercury, with Two-and-Two. Two-and-Two was a bricklayer, a good beginning for a construction man. That seems to be paying off, as colonists move in. Gimp is setting up solar power stations."
"Encouraging information, for once. Here's a hard one—Jig Hollis. The real intelligent man who stayed home. I've envied him for years."
"Hmmm—yes, Frank. Intelligent, maybe—but he never [p. 117] quite believed it, himself. His wife stayed with him, even after he turned real sour and reckless. One night he hit a big oak tree with his car. Now, he is just as dead as if he had crashed into the sun at fifty miles per second. He couldn't take knowing that he was scared to do what he wanted."
"Hell!" Nelsen said flatly.
"Now who else should I gossip about?" Eileen questioned. "Oh, yes—Harv Diamond, hero of our lost youth, who got space fatigue. Well, he recovered and returned to active duty in the U.S.S.F. Which perhaps leaves me with just my own love life to confess." She smiled lightly. "Once there was a kid named Frankie Nelsen, who turned out to be a very conscientious jerk. Since then, there have been scads of rugged, romantic characters on all sides... You're going to ask about Miguel Ramos."
She paused, looked unhappy and tired. "The celebrity," she said. "Mashed up. But he'll recover—this time. I've seen him—sent him flowers, sat beside him. But what do you do with a clown like that? Lock him in the closet or look at him through a telescope? Goodbye—hello—goodbye. A kid with gaudy banners flying, if he lives to be forty—which he never will. They'll be giving him artificial hands and feet, and he'll be trying for Pluto. A friend. I guess I'm proud. That's all. Anything else you want to know?"
"Yeah. There was a cute little girl at Serene."
"Jennie Harper. She married one of those singing Moon prospectors. Somebody murdered them both—way out on Far Side."