“I doubt it,” Ivy said, in a tone of voice that suggested she wouldn’t know what to say to him. “I don’t think it’s standard practice to launch a nuclear missile and then just hang out.”
CERTAIN ASPECTS OF CLOUD ARK CULTURE WERE MORE OBJECTIONABLE than others to Dr. Moira Crewe. She just didn’t think it decent to live in a place where there were no coffee shops to have breakfast in when she woke up, and no public houses in which to socialize at day’s end. This was partly the result of overcrowding; partly because people lived on three different shifts, so there was no unanimity as to when morning and evening fell; and partly because the place had been hastily designed by American and Russian engineers who were blind to the importance of such things. She’d had a number of good chats about it with Luisa, who understood, and they had formed a sort of vague resolution to do something about it once the Hard Rain had begun and the Cloud Ark had settled into some kind of long-term routine. Moira’s dream was to be the proprietor of an establishment, perhaps constructed in a single arklet, that would serve that purpose. But she had not yet worked out how to get the timing just right.