Right now Leonid Gruzinsky really wanted a good stiff drink. But equally he knew that he needed a clear head to push his way through the pile of documentation Star City had sent up to Defense Ministry HQ.

Wine could wait, he told himself. Somewhere around his office he had a bottle of peach nectar.

Most of his fellow Soviet citizens wouldn't even get it. But it still amused him to remember the guys at Johnson Space Center ribbing him with the obvious joke. It had stung his pride at first, until he realized that to be accepted by these men, he had to be able to laugh about it, even take pride in it to the point he'd snack on peaches while he was there.