Gateway To Xanadu by Sharon Green Page B

recognizing themselves,” I told Ringer. I was still being ignored because Val was blurring back to himself and filling out again, and nothing short of armed attack would have been able to draw Ringer’s attention away. “If he ever manages to do reversals, we’ll never need a mirror again.”
    “I’m sorry to spoil your good time, but I’m not a toy,” Val said to me. “I came here to work, not to take the place of your vanity table.”
    “Well, we all have to do what we do best,” I retorted. “Personally, I think you’d look cute as a vanity table.”
    “Personally, I have the feeling I shouldn’t have had this brandy without eating first,” Ringer cut in after lowering the glass he’d abruptly emptied. “I’ve never worried about that before, but this seems to be a day for firsts. Anybody else interested in a sobering influence?”
    “Not me,” I said with a shake of my head, leaning back in my chair, swirling the brandy in my glass. “I grabbed a snack just before approach, and it’ll hold me for a while.”
    “Syntho,” Val said with a grimace, obviously deciding to drop the discussion we’d been having out of deference to Ringer’s near-upset.
    “Syntho has its place, but I prefer the real thing,” Ringer agreed with Val’s prejudice, looking around to see if he could spot the real drink-server. “Diana does too, when she isn’t feeling restless-or too lazy to do her own cooking.”
    “What own cooking?” Val asked with a soft sound of ridicule, and suddenly the conversation took on a new interest for me. “Diana can’t cook.”
    “Don’t tell me you did all the cooking during those two months,” Ringer growled disbelievingly at a Val who had begun to color somewhat. “Come on, Valdon, you didn’t really believe her? Haven’t you learned you can’t believe a word she says if it doesn’t involve an assignment?”
    Without a sound Val started to get out of his chair, the fury in his eyes so strong that I got ready to drop my glass fast and kick the table into him as a delaying tactic until I could get clear of my own chair. One more inch upward and I would have done it, catching him where it hurts the most, but Ringer had moved too fast, clamping a hand around his arm and forcing him back down.
    “This isn’t the place to settle private disagreements,” Ringer growled low to Val, tightening his grip, until Val looked away from me and focused on him. “Starting a brawl in a bar does nothing more than attract unwanted attention. And I thought you weren’t the kind to beat up on women?”
    “So did I,” Val said, taking a deep breath. “Or, I never used to be. You can let go of my arm now. The urge to kill is passing. ”
    “It only passes on a temporary basis,” Ringer told him with a very faint smile, taking his hand back while Val ran a calming hand through his black hair. “For someone who claims to know her, you got hotter than I thought you would.”
    “The effect seems to be cumulative,” Val answered, leaning back in his chair to glance at me with an unreadable expression. “I seem to be able to take only so much from her before the explosion comes, and finding out about the cooking thing after her vanity table comments and what she did during docking put it together too fast. I don’t like being made to feel like a fool.”
    “Not many of us do,” I put in before Ringer could comment. “That outrage of yours was spectacular, but I don’t think you can justify it. Whose idea was it to start cooking in the first place? Mine? Who was the one who decided he couldn’t eat syntho? Me? Who was the one who talked the other into sharing the first meal? Into continuing to share the meals? So I led you to believe I couldn’t cook. At what point did I twist your arm hard enough to force you into cooking for both of us?”
    “Looks like she has you there, Valdon,” Ringer observed, My supposed partner was looking vexed, as though he didn’t quite agree with me.