Heechee rendezvous by Frederik Pohl Page B

one. He was also a man (as you see) who got a lot of pleasure out of dropping hints about himself, particularly when talking about himself in the third person.
     
    woman is our field and we may go into our field to plow it when we will. So says Al-Baqara, the Cow.”
    Walthers, suppressing resentment, essayed a joke: “Unfortunately my wife is not a cow.”
    “Unfortunately your wife is not a wife,” the Arab scolded. “Back home in Houston we have for such as you a term: pussy-whipped. It is a shameful state for a man.”
    “Now, listen,” Walthers began, reddening; and then clamped down again on his anger. Over by the cooking tent Luqman looked up from his meticulous measuring of the day’s brandy ration and frowned at the sound of the voices. Walthers forced a reassuring smile. “We shall never agree,” he said, “so let’s be friends anyway.” He sought to change the subject. “I’ve been wondering,” he said, “why you decided to look for oil right here on the equator.”
    Fawzi’s lips pursed and he studied Walthers’ face closely before he replied. “We have had many indications of appropriate geology.”
    “Sure you have-all those satellite photos have been published, you know. They’re no secret. But there’s even better-looking geology in the northern hemisphere, around the Glass Sea.”
    “That is enough,” Fawzi interrupted, his voice rising. “You are not paid to ask questions, Walthers!”
    “I was just-“
    “You were prying where you have no business, that is what you were doing!”
    And the voices were loud again, and this time Luqman came over with their eighty milliliters each of brandy. “Now what is it?” he demanded. “What is the American asking?”
    “It does not matter. I have not answered.”
    Luqman glared at him for a moment, Walthers’ brandy ration in his hand, and then abruptly he lifted it to his lips and tossed it down. Walthers stifled a growl of protest. It did not matter that much. He did not really want to be drinking companions with these people. And in any case it seemed Luqman’s careful measuring of milliliters had not kept him from a shot or two in private, earlier, because his face was flushed and his voice was thick. “Walthers,” he growled, “I would punish your prying if it was important, but it is not. You want to know why we look here, one hundred seventy kilometers from where the launch loop will be built? Then look above you!” He thrust a theatrical arm to the darkened sky and then lurched away, laughing. Over his shoulder he tossed, “It does not matter anymore anyway!”
    Walthers stared after him, then glanced up into the night sky.
    A bright blue bead was sliding across the unfamiliar constellations. The transport! The interstellar vessel S. Ya. Broadhead had entered high orbit. He could read its course, jockeying to low orbit and parking there, an immense, potato-shaped, blue-gleaming lesser moon in the cloudless sky of Peggy’s Planet. In nineteen hours it would be parked. Before then he had to be in his shuttle to meet it, to participate in the frantic space-to-surface flights for the fragile fractions of the cargo and for the favored passengers, or nudging the free-fall deorbiters out of their paths to bring the terrified immigrants down to their new home.
    Walthers thanked Luqman silently for stealing his drink; he could afford no sleep that night. While the four Arabs slept he was breaking down tents and stowing equipment, packing his aircraft, and talking with the base at Port Hegramet to make sure he had a shuttle assignment. He had. If he was there by noon the following day they would give him a berth and a chance to cash in on the frantic round trips that would empty the vast transport and free it for its return trip. At first light he had the Arabs up, cursing and stumbling around. In half an hour they were aboard his plane and on the way home.
    He reached the airport in plenty of time, although something inside him was