In good time said man arrived in a corseted wedge of perfume and color. Aminata had bought a dram of import whiskey, the strong conservative Grendlake with its smoky tones. She looked up with practiced challenge. Her first impression was of composition, like a sculpture.

“Miss Aminata isiSegu?” His voice crisply Falcrest-accented, in his thirties or forties. “I spoke to one of your colleagues yesterday.…”

He had a face like the morning, wide and bright, with a small flat nose, powerful cheekbones, and perfectly classic eyes. His sherwani flattered a muscular body of pornographic leanness. He was quite uncomfortable to look at, in the sense that it was hard for Aminata not to stare. How had he gotten so definite? Isometric training, perhaps, to isolate and endow each muscle?

Aminata saluted him with the whiskey. “Hello,” she said, “just the man I was looking at.”

“Looking for, perhaps?”

“That, too.” She pushed out his chair with one boot tip. “I’ll excuse the Miss. I’m Lieutenant Commander Aminata. I don’t come ashore often, so I hope you’ll forgive my indiscretions. Are there any drinks here as fine as the company?”

“The restaurant company, I’m sure you mean,” he said, dryly. “You’re a drinker?”

“Not when I’m on duty,” she said, reminding him, with the Grendlake malt, that she wasn’t on duty. “You?”

“I’m afraid I find it dulls me.”

“We wouldn’t want that, Mister…?”

“Calcanish. You know that my reputation could be damaged if I’m seen with you, Lieutenant Commander? And that’s not all that might be hurt.”

“A little risk in the service of the Republic, Mister Calcanish.”

The waiter delivered samplers of dates in sweet honey and pure spring water. The table was a little too small for them, each quite a specimen of height, and their knees touched. Aminata complimented Mister Calcanish on his makeup. They made small talk about the island’s hydrology and Calcanish’s work. He was a demographic hygienist, checking for inbreeding. What would he do if he found it, Aminata wondered? Import brides from abroad? No, Calcanish explained, in general men were more valuable for that type of import, as they could be studded. Did the men enjoy that work, Aminata asked? But Calcanish did not play along. He thought men were already treated dreadfully on the Llosydanes, and did not care to speculate on what an experimental stud might think of being twice chattel.

Aminata ordered a garnished chicken in wine. Calcanish selected a dish of nuts in crystallized date syrup. “You must be very disciplined,” Aminata suggested, “to maintain such, mm, aesthetic. Are you a dancer, perhaps? Or otherwise ornamental?”