She looked doubtful for a moment, but only for a moment. She brightened. "I'm game."
They took the gravshaft down and ate in the third-level restaurant, an automated affair with individual conveyor-belts bringing food to each table. Part of his hypnotic training had been intended to see him through situations such as this, and so he ordered a dinner for two, complete with wine, without a hitch.
She did not seem shy. She told him that she was employed on Rigel XII, and had come to Earth on a business trip; she had arrived only the day before. She was twenty-nine, unmarried, a native-born Earther like himself, who had been living in the Rigel system the past four years.
"And now tell me about you," she said, reaching for the wine decanter.
"There isn't much to tell. I'm a fairly stodgy career man in the IDC, age forty-two, and this is the first day I've spent on Earth in ten years."
"It must feel strange."
"It does."
"How long is your vacation?"
He shrugged. "Six to eight months. I can have more if I really want it. When do you go back to Rigel?"