A barking laugh drew her eye. Zuminski held a big glass of dark beer, sitting back in the shadows, alone. She went to the bar and got herself the same. Here and in the mess, she had learned, the standard conversational gambit was “Sure cold,” and the standard answer, “Sure is.” Such scintillating dialogue at least distracted from the lingering odor of burnt grease, but the lounge was cleaner. Noisier, too. She scanned the crowd clustered near the screens—one showed a razor-sharp view of an Australian beach, surfers riding big combers—and somehow her eyes sought out Zuminski.

She walked toward him with a jaunty air she did not in fact feel. Rachel wondered how she looked, and then remembered an old friend’s advice: “No guy is going to notice what shoes you’re wearing, and if he does, he’s the wrong guy.”

She had enjoyed her fair share of men, but in her years at the Library, she now saw, the dour air of the Librarian had descended upon her like a gray shroud. The neutered population there didn’t help; Noughts tended to damp the ancient, eternal dance of men and women. In the hushed corridors of the Library, there had seemed no way to draw men to her. Kane, of course, who was great in bed but not The One. Maybe there was no One, she thought. But she was a tad slow at drawing candidates. At least, short of waving brightly colored objects at them. She hadn’t tried that.

Zuminski’s quick eyes saw her approach, and he raised an eyebrow. Something glittered in his eyes, a brief smile flickered. Her modestly proportioned figure had not suffered the bulges that came with childbearing or overeating, nor the oddities that attended living in Luna’s 0.17 gravs. Her breasts, medium-size and still pink-tipped, had not fallen. Nor had her face taken on an expression she saw in older women—the drawn lines of the former beauty, who wonders where all that attention went. She had not gone over to the common strategy, to coo, simper, paint, and decorate. Her customary conversation had an air of measured consideration with an undertone of educated irony. Maybe not a great marketing posture, but hers.

Usually guys made the opening line, but she got out ahead with, “What’s the thought of the day?”

He blinked, smiled, gestured for her to sit. “Banal bureaucratic reality meets the unknown.”

“Meaning?”

“Hassan. Stefano. They are not like us, but manage us. The lords, they speak from on high. We are to descend again tomorrow. Briefing at oh seven hundred.”

“That Stefano—”

“Yes. I saw he went outside after you….” Another raised eyebrow.

“He tried to recruit me to his cause.”

“And?

“Let’s say I gave him a sunny smile and made the V-for-victory sign… but forgot to put down one finger.”

He laughed. She liked the sound. He toasted her. “The only good thing about stupidity is that it can lead to adventure.”

“Not Stefano’s.”

“No, that leads to boredom. The cure for boredom is curiosity. Sad, there is no cure for curiosity.”