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didn’t know better by this time than to get into a duel of ironies with the Georgian biologist, it was nobody’s fault but his own.
    “You would talk with the Americans, too, then, Shota Mikheilovich, and try to find out what Houston sent them?” Lopatin asked.
    “Oh, not me. They find my English even worse than you do my Russian.” Rustaveli deliberately exaggerated his slight accent. He hung in midair, upside down relative to Lopatin and Tolmasov. It did not seem to bother him at all.
    “Will you ever be serious?” Lopatin growled.
    “I doubt it.” Whistling, Rustaveli sailed down the corridor after Bryusov.
    “Georgians,” Lopatin said softly.
    “He’s good at what he does.” Tolmasov meant it as a reproof, but was not sure it came out that way. Down deep, he thought the KGB man had a point. Rustaveli was the only non-Russian on
Tsiolkovsky
. Everyone else found him indolent and mercurial, very much the stereotypical man of the south. He found them stodgy and did not try to hide it.
    “Let us see how well he does in Minervan weather,” Lopatin said. “Him and the Americans both.” He chuckled nastily and mimed a shiver.
    Tolmasov nodded. After Smolensk, no winter held much in the way of terror for him.
    But Rustaveli had come back. “About the Americans I do not know, Oleg Borisovich,” he said, exquisitely polite as always, “but I will do well enough. If I should have trouble, perhaps Katerina will keep me warm.”
    It was Tolmasov’s turn to frown. Russians credited Georgians with legendary success with women. Shota did nothing to downplay the legend, and even though he and the doctor had quarreled, the way her eyes followed him made Tolmasov wish she looked at him like that. She gave herself to Tolmasov these days, and he was sure she enjoyed what they did together. Still, somehow it was not the same.
    “Is your boasting all you want to tell us?” the pilot askedstiffly. “We have more important things to do than listening to it.”
    “No, no, Sergei Konstantinovich.” Rustaveli sounded wounded. “I just wanted to remind you that the odds are it will not matter in the long run whether you talk with
Athena
or not.”
    “And why not?” Tolmasov fought for patience. Maybe, once Rustaveli got the jokes out of his system, he would settle down for a while.
    For the moment, the Georgian did not seem to be joking. “Because, very probably, Moscow has the code broken and will send us what it says.”
    “Hmm.” Tolmasov and Lopatin looked at each other. “Something to that,” the KGB man said after a brief hesitation—even here, so many kilometers from home, he wondered who might be listening.
    “I am glad you think so, Oleg Borisovich,” Rustaveli said. He lifted a finger, as if suddenly reminded of something. “I almost forgot—Yuri wants to see you.”
    “Me? Why?” Lopatin sounded suspicious, but only a little. Yuri Ivanovich Voroshilov spent as much time as he could in his laboratory. The chemist, Tolmasov thought, found things easier to deal with than people. It was quite in character for him to treat Rustaveli as nothing more than a biped carrier pigeon.
    Smiling, the Georgian sank his barb. “He’s all out of ice, and wants to borrow your heart for a few minutes.”
    “Why, you—” Lopatin grabbed for the buckle of the safety harness that held him in his seat.
    Tolmasov brought his hand down on top of the KGB man’s. “No brawling,” he snapped. Lopatin kept struggling for a few seconds to open the harness, then subsided. Tolmasov turned his glare on Rustaveli. “I will log this incident. You are reprimanded. There will be no repetitions.”
    “Yes, Comrade Colonel.” Rustaveli clicked his heels, a gesture only ludicrous in free-fall. “Reprimand all you like. But it means nothing.”
    “You will think differently when you get back to Earth,” Tolmasov ground out. “Are you a mutineer?” He was a military man; he could not think of anything worse to call