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and he
did not meet Laenea’s gaze.
    “What’s the matter?”
    “Nothing.” He looked at her again, smiling
slightly. That at least was true; he was not worried.
    “Are you going to stay here all night?”
    “It isn’t night, it’s nearly
morning.”
    “A room’s more comfortable — you were
asleep.”
    He shrugged; she could see she was making him uneasy. She
realized he must not have any money.
    “Didn’t your credit come through?” she
asked. “That happens all the time. I think chimpanzees write the
bookkeeping programs.” She had gone through the red tape and annoyance of
emergency credit several times when her transfers were misplaced or miscoded.
“All you have to do —”
    “The administrators made no error in my case.”
    Laenea waited for him to explain or not, as he wished.
Suddenly he grinned, amused at himself but not self-deprecating. He looked even
younger than he must be, when he smiled like that. “I’m not used to
using money for anything but… unnecessaries.”
    “Luxuries?”
    “Yes. Things we don’t often use on Twilight,
things I don’t need. But food, a place to sleep —” He
shrugged again. “They are always freely given, on colonial worlds. When I
got to earth, I forgot to arrange a credit transfer. I know better.” He
was blushing faintly. “I won’t forget again. I miss a meal and one
night’s sleep — I’ve missed more on Twilight, when I was
doing real work. In a few hours I correct my error.”
    “There’s no need to go hungry now,” Laenea
said. “You can —”
    “I respect your customs,” Radu said. “But
my people prefer not to borrow and we never take what is unwillingly
given.”
    Laenea stood up and held out her hand. “I never offer
unwillingly. Come along.”
    His hand was warm and hard, like polished wood.

Chapter 2
    At the top of the elevator shaft, Laenea and Radu stepped
out into the middle of the night. It was foggy and luminous, sky and sea
blending into uniform gray beneath the brilliant moon. No wind revealed the
surface of the sea or the limits of the fog, but the air was cold. Laenea swung
the cloak around them both. A light rain, almost invisible, drifted down,
beading mistily in tiny brilliant drops on the black velvet and on Radu’s
hair. He was silver and gold in the artificial light.
    “It’s like Twilight now,” he said.
“It rains like this in the winter.” He stretched out his arm, with
the black velvet draping down like quiescent wings, opened his palm to the
rain, and watched the minuscule droplets touch his fingertips. Laenea could
tell from the yearning in his voice, the wistfulness, that he was painfully, desperately
homesick. She said nothing, for she knew from experience that nothing could be
said to help. The pain faded only with time and fondness for other places.
Earth as yet had given Radu no cause for fondness. But now he stood gazing into
the fog, as though he could see continents, or stars. She slipped her arm
around his shoulders in a gesture of comfort.
    “Let’s walk to the point.” Laenea had been
enclosed in testing and training rooms and hospitals as he had been confined in
ships and quarantine: She, too, felt the need for fresh air and rain and the
ocean’s silent words.
    The sidewalk followed the edge of the port. A rail separated
it from a drop of ten meters to the sea. Incipient waves caressed the metal
cliff obliquely and slid away into the darkness. Laenea and Radu walked slowly
along, matching strides. Every few paces their hips brushed together. Laenea
glanced at Radu occasionally and wondered how she could have thought him
anything but beautiful. Her heart circled slowly in her breast, low pitched,
relaxing, and her perceptions faded from fever clarity to misty dark and
soothing. A veil seemed to surround and protect her. She became aware that Radu
was gazing at her, more than she watched him. The cold touched them through the
cloak, and they moved closer together; it seemed only sensible