He said violently, “No! That is, I mean I’m sorry, Helena, but I’ve got something to do.”
She stared at him with shock in her eyes. “On Holiday?”
“On Holiday. Truly, Helena, I’m sorry. Look, what you said last night—from now till tomorrow morning, I can do what I want, right?”
Sullenly, “Yes. I thought, Ross, that I knew what——”
“Okay.” He jerked his arm away, feeling like all of the hundred possible kinds of a skunk. “See you around,” he said over his shoulder. He did not look back.
Three kilos back, he told himself firmly, then the right-hand fork in the road. And not more than a dozen kilos, at the most, to the spaceport. He could do it in a couple of hours.
One thing had been established for certain: If ever there had been a “Franklin Foundation” on this planet, it was gone for g
