FORTY-EIGHT

The Baron’s barroom was having a going-out-of-business sale, and Brooklyn was doing his best to be the best customer. Two empty bottles were already lined up on the bar next to the boxing bell, which he’d purchased in a fit of nostalgia.

At week’s end, the Baron von Steuben would lift off from Ceres and burn hard toward Venus. It would be the old ship’s last flight, since it couldn’t fit through the tunnel to De Milo, and it would be full of refugees from the Belt.

Brooklyn had missed his old pal Terry by eight hours. The pilot had made it back in time for the meeting and gone right back out again to pick up a polypod of miners on Vesta.

He ordered another bottle.

“It’s been a while.” The Purple Lady took shape on the stool next to him, 1930s Earth glamour meets a dingy asteroid bar at the tuck-tail end of the Twentieth Century. “Are you trying to avoid me?”

He poured three fingers of vodka into a glass for her. “Don’t seem right drinking in front o’ the kids.”

“How’d you get the morning off?”

“They’re crawling ’round inside the Baron’s hull, patching holes an’ gettin’ it ready to fly.”

“The youngest of them is six, Brooklyn.”

“Murph won’t let anything happen to them. They’re mostly jus’ holdin’ shit for him. Passin’ it along. I wouldna let him in there I thought it was dangerous.”

“This from a man who can’t be killed.” She drained her glass and signaled the bartender. “Another, please. Gin.”

“He can see you?”

“Better that than let him see you talking to yourself.” She put her hand on his arm. “Real as you are.”

“For the moment.”

“That’s true for anyone. My moment is just longer than most people’s.” She frowned. “I wonder, though, if, at the end, it will seem short.”

He held up his glass. “To moments.”

They clinked.

“Really, though,” she moved the vodka bottle in line with the others, “are you trying to make up for lost time? I don’t think there’s such a thing as an alcohol deficit.”

“Getting blotto.” He smirked. “What my old man used to call it. So drunk you can’t tell bad from good, bathroom from closet, or your bed from someone else’s. Hard state to achieve when you’re full of tiny robots.”

“You made Maddy cry.”

He started. “You saw that?”

She shook her head. “I just put one and five together. You want them to go back to Venus on the Baron. They want to stay with you and go to the Artiplanet.”

“Made all o’ them cry.” He tossed back more vodka. “Didn’t sign up to be a babysitter.”

“You told them they were your crew.”

“Just said that to… I dunno… get ’em to do what I said.”

“And they did. And now you’re dumping them.” She sighed. “Now I want to cry.”

“Said I’d think about it.”

“Are you thinking? You should. Life in a cave with other humans or life on a starship full of wonders, seeing things no other of their species will ever see? I know what I’d pick.”

“They’re kids.”

“They’re people, Brook.” She turned her glass around on the bar. “Drinking like this isn’t healthy. Do you want to go back to your room and try sex again?”

He popped an eyebrow. “That didn’t go so well last time. Said it was ‘an extremely inefficient way of propagation.’”

“It is.”

“You said I satisfied, like, point-one-three percent of you.”

“I am made of millions, Brooklyn. Do the math. That’s actually a rather high number.” She took his hand. “C’mon. Before Maddy gets back, and you tell her you changed your mind.”