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nervous colt, and again: the lines of strain across his forehead eased almost imperceptibly. She brushed
back the errant lock of dark blond hair. "I've had less time to think of you than you of me," she said, "but
I think you're beautiful, and an admirable man."
Radu smiled with little humor. "I'm not thought beautiful on Twilight."
"Then Twilight has as many fools as any other human world."
"You... want me to stay?"
"Yes."
He sat down again like a man in a dream. Neither spoke. Andrew appeared, to remove the soup
plates and serve the main course. He was diplomatically unruffled, but not quite oblivious to Laenea and
Radu's near departure. "Is everything satisfactory?"
"Very much so, Andrew. Thank you."
He bowed and smiled and pushed away the serving cart.
"Have you contracted for transit again?"
"Not yet," Radu said.
"I have a month before my proving flights." She thought of places she could take him, sights she could
show him. "I thought I'd just have to endure the time-- " She fell silent, for Ramona-Teresa was standing
in the entrance of the restaurant, scanning the room. She saw Laenea and came toward her. Laenea
waited, frowning; Radu turned, froze, struck by Ramona's compelling presence: serenity, power,
determination. Laenea wondered if the older pilot had relented, but she was no longer so eager to be
presented with mysteries, rather than to discover them herself.
Ramona-Teresa stopped at their table, ignoring Radu, or, rather, glancing at him, dismissing him in the
same instant, and speaking to Laenea. "They want you to go back."
Laenea had almost forgotten the doctors and administrators, who could hardly take her departure as
calmly as did the other pilots. "Did you tell them where I was?" She knew immediately that she had asked
an unworthy question. "I'm sorry."
"They always want to teach us that they're in control. Sometimes it's easiest to let them believe they
are."
"Thanks," Laenea said, "but I've had enough tests and plastic tubes." She felt very free, for whatever
she did she would not be grounded: she was worth too much. No one would even censure her for
irresponsibility, for everyone knew pilots were quite perfectly mad.
"Don't use your credit key."
"All right..." She saw how easily she could be traced, and wished she had not got out of the habit of
carrying cash. "Ramona, lend me some money."
Now Ramona did look at Radu, critically. "It would be better if you came with the rest of us." Radu
flushed. She was, all too obviously, not speaking to him.
"No, it wouldn't." Laenea's tone was chill. The dim blue light glinted silver from the gray in Ramona's
hair as she turned back to Laenea's and reached into an inner pocket. She handed her a folded sheaf of
bills. "You young ones never plan." Laenea could not be sure what she meant, and she had no chance to
ask. Ramona-Teresa turned away and left.
Laenea shoved the money into her pants pocket, annoyed not so much because she had had to ask for
it as because Ramona-Teresa had been so sure she would need it.
"She may be right," Radu said slowly. "Pilots, and crew-- " She touched his hand again, rubbing its
back, following the ridges of strong fine bones to his wrist. "She shouldn't have been so snobbish. We're
none of her business."
"She was...I never met anyone like her before. I felt as if I were in the presence of someone so
different from me-- so far beyond-- that we couldn't speak together." He grinned, quick flash of strong
white teeth behind his shaggy mustache, deep smile lines in his cheeks. "Even if she'd cared to." With his
free hand he stroked her green velvet sleeve. She could feel the beat of his pulse, rapid and upset. As if
he had closed an electrical circuit, a pleasurable chill spread up Laenea's arm.
"Radu, did you ever meet a pilot or a crew member who wasn't different from anyone you had ever
met before? I haven't. We all start out that way. Transit didn't change Ramona."
He acquiesced with silence only, no more certain of the validity of her assurance than she was.
"For now it doesn't make any difference anyway," Laenea said.
The unhappiness slipped from Radu's expression, the joy came back, but uncertainty remained. They
finished their dinner quickly, in expectation, anticipation, paying insufficient attention to the excellent food.
Though annoyed that she had to worry about the subject at all, Laenea considered available ways of
preserving her freedom. She wished Kathell Stafford were still on the island, for she of all people could
have helped. She had already helped, as usual, without even meaning to.
But the situation was hardly serious; evading the administrators as long as possible was a matter of
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