Free Triton (Trouble on Triton) by Samuel R. Delany Page A

preferred, physical type you feel most assured of your performance with.” His preferred description had been, patly: “Short, dark, small-boned, big-hipped.”
    And Miriamne, short, dark, small-boned, and just a hair’s breadth shy of cal-lipygous, was looking somewhere about five inches to the left, and two inches above, his right ear. At his eyebrow? No ...
    Bron rose from his chair, still smiling. She was the sort of woman he could be infinitely patient with in bed (if she needed patience), as it is often rather easier to be patient with those with whom you feel secure in your performance: he experienced a pleasant return of professional aplomb. Hopefully, he thought, she lives in a nice, friendly, mixed co-op so she doesn’t lack for conversation (conversation in sexualizationships was not his strong point). Women who accepted this he had occasionally grown quite fond of. And there was something in her expression that assured him he could never, really, care. How much better could it be? Rewarding for the body, challenging to the intellect, and no strain on the emotions. He came around, sat on the corner of his desk—interposing himself between her and whatever she was now staring at behind him—and asked: “Have you any idea what exactly they expect me to do with you?” Two weeks, he decided, at minimum—at least it’ll occupy my mind. It might even run three or four months—at maximum. Who knows, they might even eventaUy like each other. She said, “Put me to work, I suppose,” and frowned off at the memos shingling the bulletin board. He asked: “What exactly are you into?”
    She sighed, “Cybralogs,” in a way (she was still looking at the board) that suggested she’d said it many times that morning.
    Still, he smiled and, a flicker of bewilderment playing through his voice, asked: “Cybralogs ... ?” and, when she still didn’t look, asked also: “If your field is Cybralogs, why in the world did they send you to Metalogics?”
    “I suspect—” Her glance caught his—“because they have five letters in common, three of them even in the same order. As all those war posters are constantly reminding us, we aren’t in the world. We’re on the last major moon of the Solar System, the only one that’s managed to stay out of the stupidest and most expensive war in history— just managed. And after last night, one wonders how long that’ll be for!
    Our economic outlets and inlets are so strained we’ve been leaning on the border of economic crisis for a year—and from the wrong side at that. Everyone in a position of authority is hysterical, and everyone else is pretending to be asleep: Have you known anything to function as it should in the past six months?
    Anything? I mean, after last night —”
    Oh, he thought, she lives in the u-1. Well, that shouldn’t be a problem; might even make things more interesting ... And blinked away blonde laughter from the dove-gray shoulders.
    “Yes, that business yesterday evening. That was pretty scary, wasn’t it? A guy at the co-op I’m staying at is in the Intelligence Liaison Department. Afterward, he was trying to explain the whole thing away to a bunch of us. I don’t think anyone was convinced.” (That should show her he had some political consciousness. And now something for her ego ... ?) “Really, I know Audri has to use whoever she gets, especially right through here, but what’s the point of sending someone with your training to this department?” He twisted around on the desk corner, picked up the arc of wire from the corn-rack, put the red bead to his ear and the blue one to his lips. “Personnel ... ?” he said too gruffly; Miriamne glanced at him. “This is Bron Helstrom—” followed with the first ten of his twenty-two-digit identification number; for job purposes that was all anyone needed. “Get that down, please. I don’t want to have to repeat it. You’ve sent us along, here in Metalogics, one Miriamne—I’m not