As Arlen, his tray laden, joined her, she saw Anders Kobolak come in with his wife, Alina Rostadt. Anders, she thought, was looking better these days; his thin face, under dark hair, was never exactly jolly in expression, but the sulky look he'd worn so long, for months after the death of his sister, was gone now. She waved to the couple; by nodding, they accepted her invitation.
Arlen frowned. "I thought we could talk."
"We can."
"Not about anything personal."
She scowled at him. "After, then. All right?"
"I guess so." He poured coffee for both of them, as Anders and Alina came to sit.
Lisele gave greetings. "How's everything going, so far?" At one time, she knew, in a dangerous situation Alina Rostadt had been trained and disguised to pretend to be Lisele's mother, while Rissa Kerguelen herself carried another persona. The trick had worked-but now, Lisele thought, it couldn't. Not while Alina carried at least ten kilos over Rissa's highest weight. Oh, well; Rostadt simply wasn't the athletic type.
Kobolak answered. "We're settling in; no problems. I'd hoped to get First Hat on here, but Ms. Lu-teng has seniority on me and moved up from Second. That's all right; I'm Gunnery Officer as well, which gives me bonus pay. For six months, I can wait the other promotion."
"Six?" Puzzled, Lisele thought back. "Hare went from Earth to Shaarbant in three."
Kobolak had a mouthful of food, so Alina answered. "There's a side-excursion, going back. You hadn't heard?"
Lisele hadn't; his food swallowed, Anders explained. "It's a gravitational anomaly of some kind. Coming to Shaarbant,
13
with the Hare well above c, the inertial detectors went fruitcake. So on our way back to Earth, Captain Delarov has clearance to take a side-jog, cut the Hoyfarul Drive and drop to STL, have a closer look. Maybe something's there, or maybe it was just an instrument glitch; either way, we'll find out." "I wonder what it could be," said Arlen. For the rest of the meal, Lisele nursing her coffee to make it last, everyone speculated. The end result was, no one had any clues at all.
When the other two left, Lisele said, "Now we can talk."
Arlen looked over to the next table, where several ratings were telling jokes, having a high old time. "Not here."
Lisele knew what he wanted: her quarters or his. She sighed. Clearly, perhaps even inevitably, she felt that Arlen Limmer would someday be her first (and perhaps only) lover. Because they'd been close friends from infancy, and toward no one else of her own age did she feel such fondness.
But not yet. For one thing, until her menses which weren't due for a few more days, she'd be vulnerable to an unwanted conception. And for another, she didn't feel ready. Yet Arlen kept pushing at her; it was one of his more irritating qualities.
So she said, "Turret Four. I need some gunnery practice, anyway, and Four's set up for simulation runs."
She had to hand it to Arlen; at least he tried to look pleased at her choice. He wasn't, though. He couldn't be, because the turrets weren't all that private.
Scaled down in size, March Hare mounted only four peripheral turrets, not six. The peripherals had traverse capability, while the central, more powerful projector aimed always straight ahead, along the ship's major axis. Spaced between the outer turrets were torpedo bays, but Lisele hadn't asked what kinds of warheads those missiles carried. Now she seated herself in the gunner's chair; it was adjusted comfortably for her height and lengths of limb, so she put the option switch to Simulate and applied power.
In the monitor seat, Arlen fidgeted as Lisele checked the panel's indicators. A projector consisted of two UV lasers, designed to heterodyne at peak energy in the infrared range, and to converge where the beams met their target. In practice, though, the fine tuning required human control. The ship's computer chose a gunner's targets and would only
14
"give you a shot" if heterodyne and convergence were tuned properly.
The indicators and their controls were these: on the panel's small central screen, a circle glowed. If it tilted to become an ellipse, heterodyne was off; "pushing" at it, laterally with the righthand control lever, would straighten it up. At each side of the screen was a range light; when convergence was correct, both lights were out. If one lit, pushing the lefthand lever toward it would correct matters. There was also an override pedal, not especially useful in Simulation; in real combat, if the situation became desperate, that pedal doubled the combined convergence-heterodyne tolerance, to allow chancier shots.
Which all sounded simple enough. The trouble was that when ships fought, things happened very fast indeed; controlling both variables at the same time took good reflexes and plenty of practice. Lisele had the former, but for a long time now, not the latter. So, unfocusing her eyes slightly, in order to see the screen and range lights simultaneously, she punched for the first Sim in the turret's program. "Call my scores, will you, Arlen?"
"Well, sure-but when do we talk?"
She thought for a moment, then grinned. "After I take a half-dozen sim runs or so, and before you do."
The run began; the range lights told her of an enemy ship coming in fast, but decelerating on a skew pass. By the time she had that part solved, heterodyne was drifting; for seconds she couldn't coordinate, and when she did, the computer abruptly switched targets, Out of practice, she fumbled for a time, but by the end of the run she felt she had the feel of it again.
Her next five exercises proved her to be correct.
Reading off the scores-percentage of time effectively on target as compared to what was possible-Arlen nodded. "It comes back fast, doesn't it? For you, anyway."
"Want to try six for yourself, now? Put a bet on it?" "Not just yet." He reached across to clasp her hand. "Lisele, you know how I feel about you. Why don't you want me to say it?"
"If I know, why do you have to?"
"Because you never give me an answer. Why not?"
Feeling pressured, she wanted to jerk her hand free of
15
his. Instead, she disengaged it gently. "You ever think, maybe I'm just not ready?"
"You're fifteen. Less than a year from full adult status."
"But not there yet."
"Fourteen's marriageable age, with parents' consent.
"Except, my parents aren't here."
"What if I told you I'd asked them, and they said yes?"
Unable to suppress her reaction, Lisele laughed. "And Rissa simply forgot to tell me? Oh, Arlen!"
He had the grace to show a sheepish grin. "All right, I didn't. But I'll bet that if I had, they'd have said it's up to you. Wouldn't they?"
To be fair, Lisele had to admit he was probably right. So she hedged. "Still, though, you didn't ask. Never mind; what I do is up to me, anyway. Marriage aside, that is."
"Sure," he said. "I knew you'd see it. Lisele, we could just be lovers for a while, and get married when you're sixteen."
How had she let him pin her down to specifics so quickly? Physically she didn't shake her head, but her thoughts included that action. Now what to say?
Well, why not the truth? "Arlen. I know you and I like you; maybe I even love you. I did when we were little, and it probably hasn't all worn off." He tried to speak, but with a finger to his lips she shushed him. "No, listen. Someday I'll have a lover or a husband, and unless you get tired of waiting around and run off with somebody else, you'll probably be him." She took a deep breath', and sighed. "But not right now."
"Can I ask why?
