"On such short notice?" Don was intrigued. Last night the redhead from the club car had repelled an advance that hadn't been made, and this morning a blonde was apparently making an advance that hadn't been solicited. He wondered where Geneva Jervis was, but only vaguely.
"I'll admit to the double entendre," Alis said. "What I meant—for now—was that we can stroll out to where Superior used to be attached to the rest of Ohio and see how the Earth is getting along without us."
"Delighted. But don't you have any classes?"
"Sure I do. Non-Einsteinian Relativity 1, at nine o'clock. But I'm a demon class-cutter, which is why I'm still a Senior at my advanced age. On to the brink!"
They walked south from the campus and came to the railroad track. The train was standing there with nowhere to go. It had been abandoned except for the conductor, who had dutifully spent the night aboard.
"What's happening?" he asked when he saw them. "Any word from down there?"
"Not that I know of," Don said. He introduced him to Alis Garet. "What are you going to do?"
"What can I do?" the conductor asked.
"You can go over to Cavalier and have breakfast," Alis said. "Nobody's going to steal your old train."