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"Such feelings are consistent with my knowledge of the juvenile male of the species, Rod. But if you wish to leave home, why not ask your father's permission?"
"Oh, come on, Fess. If he could afford to send me to Terra and put me through college, he would have!"
"The support I had in mind was moral, not financial."
"He wouldn't give it, Fess. He'd think I was crazy, to go jaunting off into nowhere on a tramp freighter. He'd also be panicked out of his mind with worry."
"I think you may underestimate your father, boss master sahib."
"Are you kidding? It'd be one thing if it had never crossed his mind to get off Maxima when he was young—but it's entirely another, knowing that he actively decided against it!"
"You ca
"Fess, you remember how Grandpa used to tell me, every few weeks, that as soon as I was old enough, I should leave Maxima?"
"You did take into account that your grandfather was no longer of sound mind, did you not, young effendi?"
"Yeah, and now I know what drove him around the bend! Every time he told me to go, he reminded me that he'd given that same advice to Dad."
"Surely he had always had too great a sense of responsibility to act so selfishly, young master batyushka."
"Would it have done him so much harm, as long as he was home before Grandpa went off the tracks? Especially since he's spent the rest of his life just hanging around on this back patch of the estate, taking care of Grandpa and us, and waiting, just in case something happened to both Uncle Despard and Cousin Rupert—which it never has."
"May it never!" But your father's self-sacrifice should be a shining example to you, young master baas!"
"Oh, absolutely blinding—and I'm going to make damn sure it doesn't happen to me! That freighter from Mars is in, and the captain says they can use another hand. They're slipping orbit at midnight, outbound for Triton—and I'm going to be with them! Make sure my bag gets to the spaceport by 2300, Fess."
"As you wish, very young master," Fess sighed. ''Meanwhile, there is still a matter of tonight's ball. If you are not there, questions will be asked."
"Don't I know it, though! Why do you think I'm going? Besides, if I'm out at a ball, nobody will expect me till way after midnight… Ah, there!" Out of the closet, Rod pulled a set of frills with buttonholes. He slipped it on over his singlet. "Yuck! I like formal shirts, but they're way overdone this year!"
"They lend you a look of elegance, young master boss."
"Elegance have long trunks, Fess—and that's what I need to carry these things in. I just wish I could get out of going to this one last ball."
The robot emitted the burst of white noise that was its equivalent of a sigh. "You may counteract the boredom by reminding yourself that it will be the last one you need ever attend, Rod. Still, some of the young ladies have truly wonderful hearts…"
"And truly deplorable looks, with faces like mashed potatoes. Well, no, I'm being unfair. Strike the 'mashed.' "
"But surely their figures excite your interest."
"Who would know, under all the drapery they have to wear to these things? Probably just as well, too." Rod shuddered. "Not to mention their minds. I mean, the inbreeding here is really begi
The robot forbore mentioning that Rod himself might be something of an example. It wasn't really true, and besides, it would have been a cheap shot. "I must urge you to retain your politeness, young master sahib. There is no reason to visit your own torments on the young ladies."
"Yeah, you're right," Rod sighed. "It's not their fault that they're unattractive, or that I'm a misfit who can't settle down and have a good time raising a family and holding down a job, a maverick who needs adventure! Excitement! Independence!" His eyes sparkled and gleamed. "That's the life for me—out on my own! Bound to no one! Rugged individualism! Untrammeled! Self-reliant!" He sighed with a happy smile, then gave his head a shake and turned to let the robot push studs into his shirt. "Pack my bag for me, will you, Fess?"
The ball was every bit as boring as Rod expected it to be. Not that he disliked the starched collar or the swallow-tailed coat; he always got a kick out of being in costume—it made him stand a little taller, and put a spring in his step. He felt like a character out of a nineteenth-century play in his white tie and tails.
And it wasn't the atmosphere of the ball, either. Rod had a bent for the fantastic, had had it for all of his twenty-one years, and had never quite outgrown his childhood games of "Let's Pretend." In fact, he was doing very well in the Maxima Amateur Theater Society and the Light Opera Association of Maxima. No, in terms of stepping into character, he was right at home.
And it wasn't even that the dances were too sedate—Rod enjoyed the waltz and even the minuet; they went along with the acting. No, it was the company—the simple fact that there was no one else there who was interesting to talk to, and certainly nobody female who was good-looking.
"Oh, I love your costume!" Lady Matilda Bolwheel chirped.
"I'm glad you do," Rod murmured. She damned well had better like it, since every man in the place was wearing a variation on it. "And your dress is very fetching." He gallantly forbore to mention what it would fetch.
"Why, thank you." She turned coyly half-away, letting her eyelashes droop, reminding Rod of a 3DT clip of a cow his tutor had shown him when he was ten.
But she was obviously angling for him to ask her for a dance, and there wasn't much else to do. With a mental sigh, he braced himself and said, "Shall we dance?"
She blossomed into radiance. "Why, I'd be delighted!"
And off they went, in a stately whirl of crinoline and swallow-tails.
When the dance was over, though, Matilda kept firm hold of Rod's arm, with the clear intention of monopolizing him for the evening. "Oh, do let's go into di
"Uh, well, I've been on a diet lately…"
"Ah, there you are, Rodney!" Lady Mulhearn, his hostess, came sailing up like a square-rigged galleon. "How naughty of you to hide with Matilda, when you know we must have you circulate! You do know Lady Jenine, don't you?"
The question was purely rhetorical; everybody knew everybody else on Maxima; there were only three hundred thousand of them, and only a few thousand in Rod's generation. "Hi, milady." Rod bowed, thankful that the issue of Matilda had been, at least temporarily, squelched.
"My pleasure, sir." Jenine dropped a curtsy. She had the golden complexion that comes from the mingling of all Terra's races, as had most of the people on Maxima. Rod himself was considerably paler than the norm, but he ta
"Oh, I just love it! Shall we prance?"
The line would have been a hopeful sign, if Rod hadn't heard it before in the same 3DT historical that had brought back the gavotte. He turned to make his apologies to Matilda, but Lady Mulhearn was already doing it for him. "You mustn't be selfish, Tildy… No, do go away, Rodney, there's a good boy… After all, when there are so few eligible bachelors, young ladies must learn to share."
The pout was begi
"And to think this all came from a 3DT epic!" Jenine burbled as she bobbed and weaved. "Didn't you just love Hamlish Hofernung as Louis XV?"
"He lived up to his nickname, that's for sure." Inwardly, Rod sighed. He was in for a good ten minutes of discussion of nothing but the latest tank stars and their exploits. It wasn't that epics were the only thing Jenine was interested in—it was just that they were the only topic she knew anything about. At least she had a modicum of wit, though—or witty lines, provided she'd heard them from an actor.