‘It takes a while. Five years now, I haven’t touched one.’

‘That’s good. Did you smoke many?’

‘Two packs a day.’

‘It’s good you gave it up; that’s too many, much too many.’

Slan was beginning to wonder whether Sleder had summoned him all the way here merely for a discussion about giving up smoking.

‘I agree,’ he said. He wanted to say, ‘Who the hell was responsible for sending me those photographs?’ Instead he said, ‘How many did you smoke?’

‘About one pack. But that was too many also.’ Sleder smiled – a big, warm smile.

The girl with the outfit that could have bankrupted the International Wool Secretariat delivered coffee and reduced Slan to a jellied mass. When she had departed and his senses began to return to him, he decided he was going to recommend to American Fossilized that they trade in their coffee-vending machine for one like her. He wondered whether Sleder regarded her merely as an ornament, or whether his interests in her extended to extra-curricular activities.

‘Did you enjoy your trip with us on Chanson II?’ asked Sleder.

The girl came in again and placed a dispenser of saccharin tablets on the coffee tray. Slan longingly watched her firm buttocks and taut thighs rub past each other as she walked out of the room with a careless stride.

‘I had one hell of a time. A real ball! Any time you’re short of a crew member, let me know!’ Slan laughed, but this time Sleder didn’t laugh; he merely smiled politely.

‘You looked as if you were enjoying yourself. I thought the photographs were great fun – you got them all right?’

Slan snapped out of his fantasies. ‘I got them all right. Why the hell did you send them?’

‘Why?’ Sleder looked hurt. For a moment, Slan felt guilty that he had offended him. ‘I thought everyone who goes on holiday likes to have their … holiday snaps – a little souvenir, memento, something to look back at when you are old and grey and you can’t get your pecker up any more.’ Sleder grinned.

Slan grinned too, but it was a nervous grin. Something in Sleder’s tone of voice wasn’t quite right. ‘But let us hope there are – how is the expression – many more summers before the swan dies!’

Slan looked curiously at him.

‘It’s an expression I took from a book by an English writer – Huxley – about a rich man, a very rich man who does not want to grow old, he wants to find the key to eternal life. The book is called After Many a Summer Dies the Swan.’

Slan looked blank. He only understood three things in life: eating, sex and the manufacture of fuels. Literature had always been beyond him; he never even read the words in girlie magazines.

‘You are probably wondering why I asked you to come and see me?’

Slan nodded.