Starplex

But right now, despite all that was going on, there was little for him to do beyond the administrative. Jag would continue his dark-matter studies, as well as trying to make sense of the onslaught of stars; Hek would try to further decode the potentially alien radio signals; Rissa would pursue her life-prolongation project. And Keith? Keith kept hoping a windmill somewhere would start tilting at him—kept hoping for something important to do.

He’d decided to dine in one of the Ib restaurants. Not for the atmosphere, of course. With its almost billiard-ball-smooth surface, Flatland’s landscapes, as depicted in the restaurant’s holographic windows, were even less visually interesting than Rehbollo’s; there was no doubt that when it came to interesting geography, Earth was the most beautiful of the homeworlds. But Ibese food was based on right-handed amino acids; it was completely indigestible by the other three races.

This restaurant, though, offered a wide range of human fare—including a chicken stir-fry, which was exactly what Keith had been craving. The restaurant was inordinately crowded; the four eating establishments in the lower-habitat modules were still uninhabitable. But one of the other privileges of rank was always getting a table without a wait. A sleek, silver robot showed Keith to a booth in the back. A large gestalt plant arched over it, orange octagonal leaves roaming its body freely.

Keith told the server what he wanted, and then he spoke to the desktop viewer, asking for the latest issue of the New Yorker to be displayed. The server returned with a glass of white wine, then rolled away. Keith was settling into the lead fiction piece in the magazine when—

Bleep. “Karendaughter to Lansing.”

“Open. Yes, Lianne?”

“I’ve finished the engineering study on what to do about the irradiated lower decks. Can we get together so that I can give you my report?”

Keith swallowed once. Of course the report had to be dealt with right away; they needed to solve the overcrowding problem quickly. But where to meet Lianne? Gamma shift would be on the bridge now; no need to disturb them. Keith’s office would be the natural place, but… but… did he really trust himself to be alone with her?

Christ, this is stupid. “I’m in the Drive-Through, having dinner. Can you bring the report here?”

“Sure thing. On my way. Close.”

Keith had a sip of wine. Maybe this was a mistake. Maybe people would misconstrue, tell Rissa that he’d had a rendezvous in a booth with Lianne. Maybe—

Lianne came in, escorted to his table by a robot. She sat down opposite him and smiled. Geez, she’d arrived quickly—almost as if she’d known where he was before calling, almost as if she’d planned to catch him alone at dinner…

Keith shook his head. Get real. “Hi, Lianne,” he said. “You’ve got a report for me?”

“That’s right.” She was dressed in a cyan suit, crisp and professional. But on her head, crowing her lustrous platinum hair, she was wearing a smart replica of an old-style railway engineer’s cap. Keith had seen her wearing it before, whimsical and stylish and sexy all at once. “There are techniques,” she said, “for cleaning up radiation damage. But they’re all time-consuming, and—”

The server arrived, bringing Keith’s dinner.

“Stir-fry,” said Lianne, smiling. “I make a mean one of those. You should let me do it for you sometime.”

Keith reached for his wine, thought better of it, picked up his napkin, and, in so doing, sent his fork tumbling onto the rubberized floor. He bent down to retrieve it—and saw Lianne’s shapely legs beneath the table.

“Um, thank you,” he said, straightening back up. “That’d be nice.” He indicated the steaming platter between them. “Did you—did you want some?”

“Oh, no,” she said, patting her flat stomach, causing the fabric of her suit to pull tight across her breasts as she did so. “I’ll have a salad later. I’ve got to watch my figure.”

No need for that, thought Keith. I’ll be glad to watch it for you. “About the radiation?” he said.

She nodded. “Right. Well, as I said, we can clean it up—but not quickly, and not without putting into drydock for several weeks.”

“Weeks!” said Keith. “We can’t afford that kind of time.”

“Exactly. Which brings me to my suggested solution.”

Keith waited for her to go on. “Which is?”

“Starplex 2.”

Keith frowned. Starplex had been built at the Rehbollo orbital shipyards, and its sister ship—currently carrying the prosaic name of Starplex 2, although something else would likely end up being the official name—had been under construction now for close to a year. It was being built at Flatland; two such prime contracts couldn’t go to the same homeworld, naturally. “What about her?”