Free Across the Sea of Suns by Gregory Benford

him along, drown his reserve. Bright, young people had an undeniable momentum.
    “Hi.”
    Carlotta kissed him. “Had another face smoothing, I see.”
    “No, I decided to skip that and go straight to embalming. How’s it look?”
    “It’s
you,
dahling. Are those laugh lines or an irrigation project?”
    Bob shook hands in his good-ole-boy persona. “You figure there’s much on fer tonight?”
    Nigel fetched drinks. “The free-form sex is down the hall, second left.”
    “Don’t look for
him
there,” Carlotta said. “Nigel gets all tired out just struggling with temptation.”
    Nigel handed her a drink. “Hot-blooded kid. I suppose you’ll be playing hopscotch tonight with real Scotch?”
    “Si. You’re so much wittier after I’ve had a few drinks.”
    “You two!” Nikka shook her head. “One could never guess you had spent the night together.”
    “Mating rituals of the higher primates,” Carlotta said, taking a long pull. She stroked Nikka’s kimono. “
Madre!
It’s so attractive on you.”
    Nigel wondered why women spoke that way when presumably it was men who were best qualified to judge attraction, yet men seldom used the term. Curious. Though of course in this case his generalization fell on its face. In their first hand touch they reestablished a lazy, familiar sensuality.
    He watched Carlotta approach Nikka, speaking rapidly and approvingly, and then move away, and then return, an unconscious push-pull to draw Nikka out. Carlotta’s heavy, springy hair flowed with these movements. In marked contrast, her large brown eyes did not share this social gavotte. He liked the rigor of those eyes and the unashamed way they locked on whatever interested her, holding it for rapt attention.
    Her intensity was too much for Nikka’s mood, so soon after the reflective dressing in the kimono. Nikka escaped into the kitchen for hors d’oeuvres. Carlotta reached out a hand as if to delay her and then drew back, seeing that she had stirred up some unintended current. She turned, her long scarlet skirt flowing, and studied a sunsomi triptich nearby. Nigel watched her eyes narrow from some inner effort. There was some reservoir of emotion she was tapping that eluded him. Something deep, another fulcrum for her personality. Which proved that merely sleeping with a woman did not open her to you fully, no matter how you might try.
    Bob started in about shipboard work policy and Nigel joined in, glad of the diversion. A musical theme chimed: multifass.
    “Ummm,” Carlotta murmured and turned to Nikka to try again. “What are you doing under the new job rotation?” A relatively neutral subject.
    “Odd jobs here and there.” Nikka retreated behind a blank mildness. He recognized this as an old habit, common to Japanese, though Nikka had returned to it only in the last few years, as a day-to-day shield aboard
Lancer.
In this case, she was uncomfortable because a small deception was involved. He and Nikka had agreed to collaborate, without appearing to do so, filling in each other’s weak areas. That would help keep their labor ratings above minimum. It seemed a prudent tactic for the oldest members of the crew. “And you?”
    “Well, systems analysis of the microbio inventory, of course, from the first flyback probe.”
    Nigel said, “Until you’re finished, we don’t go down?”
    Carlotta laughed, her eyes now moving with liquid ease. “Bob has been after us for a week, panting for the green light. We’ve got lots of results—”
    “More’n plenty,” Bob grunted.
    Carlotta frowned. Friction between departments about setting a date for touchdown? “Anyway, we’ve got so much biochem to interrelate, I don’t see how we can understand it all in terms of relationships to Earth-side processes, when we’ve had only a few weeks to—”
    Another knock. Nigel went to answer. Yes, he should now leave the door dilated. It still struck him as odd, but precisely such policy decisions as the touchdown date