"You couldn't take all the speechifying either, eh?"
Wishing he were somewhere else. Kinsman nodded.
"Can't blame you. I've been in this game for a thousand years now and the only part of it I don't like is when those stuffed shirts start congratulating themselves over the things you and I did."
"Uh, sir, I was just leaving . . ."
"Hey, come on! You wouldn't leave me here to drink all alone, would you?"
Before Kinsman could answer or maneuver himself out 152 of the booth, Durban turned toward the barkeep and called, "Can I have a mug of lager, please, and another of whatever my friend here is drinking?"
The bartender nodded. "Ryte awhy, mate."
"Now then, the logistics are taken care of." Durban put his unlit pipe in the battered ashtray, then fished in his jacket pockets to produce a pouch of aromatic tobacco, lighter, and all the surgical instruments that pipe smokers carry.
"I really should be going," Kinsman said, starting to feel desperate.
"Where to?"
"Well . . ."
"There's nothing going on except that damned dedica- tion ceremony. Everybody else is there, except for thee and me. And except the miners." He started reaming out the pipe and dumping the black soot into the ashtray. The barkeep brought their drinks and put them down on the table.
"How much?" Durban asked.
"I'll keep a tab runnin'. Got a bloody computer f keep track of you blokes. Prints up your bill neat an' clean when you're ready t' go. Even keeps track o' the ice!" He laughed his way back to the bar.
"I haven't seen much of the mines yet," Kinsman said, stil! trying to get away.
"Nothing much to see," Durban muttered, putting his pipe back together. "Take the tour tomorrow morning. Just some tunnels with automated machinery chipping away at the rock. The real work's done by a half-dozen engineers in the control center. Looks Just like mission control at Kennedy or Vandenberg."
"I haven't even seen the surface. We landed last night . . ."
"Desert. They won't let you up there by yourself. Fifty degrees Celsius. That's why the miners live down here."
"I know." The sun will broil you in minutes. And it's empty up there. Clean and empty. No one to see you. No one to watch you. They wouldn't find your body for days.
Durban took a long swallow of beer. "Fifty degrees," he murmured. "Sounds hotter if you say 120 Fahrenheit."
