* * * * *
At the door to the famous rendezvous of the swankiest set, Si paused a
moment and looked about. He'd never been in a place like this, either.
However, he stifled his first instinct to wonder about what this was
going to do to his current credit balance with an inner grin and made
his way to the bar.
There was actually a bartender.
Si Pond suppressed his astonishment and said, offhand, attempting an
air of easy sophistication, "Slivovitz Sour."
"Yes, sir."
The drinks in the Kudos Room might be concocted by hand, but Si noticed
they had the routine teevee screens built into the bar for payment.
He put his credit card on the screen immediately before him when the
drink came, and had to quell his desire to dial for a balance check, so
as to be able to figure out what the Sour had cost him.
Well, this was something like it. This was the sort of thing he'd
dreamed about, out there in the great alone, seated in the confining
conning tower of his space craft. He sipped at the drink, finding it up
to his highest expectations, and then swiveled slightly on his stool to
take a look at the others present.
To his disappointment, there were no recognizable celebrities. None
that he placed, at least--top teevee stars, top politicians of the
Ultrawelfare State or Sports personalities.
He turned back to his drink and noticed, for the first time, the girl
who occupied the stool two down from him. Si Pond blinked. He blinked
and then swallowed.
"_Zo-ro-as-ter_," he breathed.
She was done in the latest style from Shanghai, even to the point of
having cosmetically duplicated the Mongolian fold at the corners of her
eyes. Every pore, but _every_ pore, was in place. She sat with the easy
grace of the Orient, so seldom found in the West.
His stare couldn't be ignored.
She looked at him coldly, turned to the bartender and murmured, "A Far
Out Cooler, please, Fredric." Then deliberately added, "I thought the
Kudos Room was supposed to be exclusive."
There was nothing the bartender could say to that, and he went about
building the drink.
Si cleared his throat. "Hey," he said, "how about letting this one be
on me?"
Her eyebrows, which had been plucked and penciled to carry out her
Oriental motif, rose. "Really!" she said, drawing it out.