The man didn’t bother to get up as we approached. Nor did he put down the gun. “Hi,” he said cheerfully. “What can I do for you?”

“We’d like—”

“Beowulf Shaeffer?”

“Yah. Larch Bellamy?”

Now he got up. “Can’t recognize anybody on this crazy world. Goggles covering half your face, everybody the same color—you have to go stark naked to be recognized, and then only the women know you. Whatinhell are you doing on Gummidgy, Bey?”

“I’ll tell you later. Larch, this is Emil Horne. Emil, meet Larchmont Bellamy.”

“Pleasure,” said Bellamy, grinning as if indeed it were. Then his grin tried to break into laughter, and he smothered it. “Let’s go inside and swallow something wet.”

“What was funny?”

“Don’t be offended, Mr. Horne. You and Bey do make an odd pair. I was thinking that the two of you are like a medium-sized beach ball standing next to a baseball bat. How did you meet?”

“On the ship,” said Emil.

The camp tent had a collapsible revolving door to hold the pressure. Inside, the tent was almost luxurious, though it was all foldaway stuff. Chairs and sofas were soft, cushiony fabric surfaces, holding their shape through insulated static charges. Tables were memory plastic. Probably they compressed into small cubes for storage aboard ship. Light came from glow strips in the fabric of the pressurized tent. The bar was a floating portable. It came to meet us at the door, took our orders, and passed out drinks.

“All right,” Bellamy said, sprawling in an armchair. When he relaxed, he relaxed totally, like a cat. Or a tiger. “Bey, how did you come to Gummidgy? And where’s Sharrol?”

“She can’t travel in space.”

“Oh? I didn’t know. That can happen to anyone.” But his eyes questioned.

“She wanted children. Did you know that? She’s always wanted children.”

He took in my red eyes and white hair. “I…see. So you broke up.”

“For the time being.”

His eyes questioned.

That’s not emphatic enough. There was something about Bellamy…He had a lean body and a lean face, with a straight, sharp-edged nose and prominent cheekbones, all setting off the dark eyes in their deep pits beneath black shaggy brows.

But there was more to it than eyes. You can’t tell a man’s age by looking at his photo, not if he takes boosterspice. But you can tell, to some extent, by watching him in motion. Older men know where they’re going before they start to move. They don’t dither, they don’t waste energy, they don’t trip over their feet, and they don’t bump into things.

Bellamy was old. There was a power in him, and his eyes questioned.

I shrugged. “We used the best answer we had, Larch. He was a friend of ours, and his name was Carlos Wu. You’ve heard of him?”

“Mathematician, isn’t he?”