'76 was a leap year, Star Day was therefore looming up in the near future — to be precise, between June 30 and July 1. Duncan was glad of the extra day, but it also meant that there would shortly be three days in five where no business could be done. For July 1, being at the beginning of a new quarter, was of
course a Sunday; and the Sunday before that was only June 28. It was bad enough, in an ordinary year, to have two Sundays at the end of every 91-day quarter, with only a Monday and Tuesday between them —
but now to have another holiday as well made it even worse.
There was still time to mail cards to all his Terran friends — Ambassador Farrell, the Washingtons,
Calindy, Bernie Patras, and half a dozen others. As for Titan, there was really no hurry. Even if they took six months to get there, the cards, with there beautiful gold-leaf Centennial stamps (five solars each, for heaven's sake, even by second-class space mail!), would still be appreciated.
Despite these problems, Duncan had found some opportunities to relax. He had been on personal
teletours of London, Rome, and Athens, which was the next best thing to being there in the flesh. Seated in a tiny, darkened cubicle with 360 degrees of high-quality sound and vision, he could easily believe that he was actually walking through the streets of the ancient cities. He could ask questions of the invisible guide who was his alter ego, talk to any passers-by, change the route to look more closely at something that took his interest. Only the sense of smell and touch remained immobile — and even these could be
tele-extended for anyone willing to foot the bill. Duncan could not afford such marginal luxury, and did not really miss it.
He also attended several concerts, two ballets, and one play — all arranged for the benefit of visitors in this Centennial year, and all unavoidable without the exercise of more diplomatic illness, or sheer bad manners, than Duncan felt able to muster. The music, though doubtless magnificent, bored him; his tastes were old-fashioned, and he enjoyed little written after the twenty-first century. The ballet was also a disappointment; to anyone who had spent all his life at a fifth of a gravity, the most remarkable of Terran grands jetés was unimpressive — and also nerve-racking, for Duncan could never quite get over the fear that the dancers would injure themselves. He watched them with envy, but he had no wish to imitate
them. It was enough that he could now walk and stand without conscious effort. This achievement was a
matter of modest pride, for there had been a time when he would not have believed it possible.
But the play delighted him. He had heard vaguely of George Bernard Shaw, now undergoing one of
his periodic revivals, and The Devil's Disciple was perfect for the occasion. Though George Washington muttered from time to time in Duncan's ear such comments as "General Burgoyne wasn't the least like that," he felt that he at least understood the American Revolution in human terms. It was no longer a shadowy affair of two-dimensional puppets, five hundred years in the past, but a life-and-death struggle involving real people, whose hopes and fears and loves he could share.
Though love, with a capital L, was not a complication that Duncan would welcome during his stay on
Earth. He could not imagine anyone ever replacing Marissa, and to have a really serious affair with a
Terran would be the stuff of tragedy, since separation would be inevitable when he returned to Titan. He wanted no part of that; he had been through it once before, with Calindy.
Or so it had seemed at the time. Now he realized that the calf love of a sixteen-year-old boy, though it had once dominated all his waking hours, was indeed shallow and transient. Yet its aftereffects still
lingered, shaping all his later passions and desires. Although he was annoyed and disappointed with
Calindy, that was unchanged; her deliberate avoidance had, if anything, added fuel to his emotions and contributed to some notably fevered dreams.
Bernie Patras, of course, was happy to relieve his symptoms, and had arranged several enjoyable
encounters. One cuddlesome and talented young lady, he swore, was his own girl friend, "who only does this with people she really wants to meet." She did, indeed, show a genuine interest in Titan and its problems; but when Bernie, as an interested party, wanted to join in the festivities, Duncan selfishly threw him out.
That was shortly before Ivor Mandel'stahm — this time in the Penn-Mass autojitney — totally
demolished his peace of mind. They had just left the Dupont Circle Interchange when he told Duncan:
"I've some interesting news for you, but I don't know what it means. You may be able to explain it."
"I'll do my best."
"I think I can claim, without much exaggeration or conceit, that I can get to anyone on Earth in one jump. But sometimes discretion suggests doing it in two, and that's how I proceeded with Miss Ellerman.