Chapter VI

Everybody snapped back to normal with a roar. There was a frantic rush of Shanig's uglies trying to escape and of Giles' patrolies collaring them again. I took no chances with Shanig. I turned my Quantrell on him and held him fast.

Hell broke loose in the Argonaut then. Even before the confusion quieted in Shanig's office we could hear the din that went up across the street.

From our balcony windows we had a grandstand view of the Argonaut's more timid patrons exploding out of the place and tearing down the street, wobbling and lurching each in his own outlandish fashion from the assortment of Eetee drinks they had taken aboard under Joey's spell. The rougher souls left inside had begun a battle royal that raised a bedlam wilder than a robot rooting section at a rocket-games stadium.

"What is it!" Captain Giles yelled, goggling at a barrel-bellied Europan who shot out of the Argonaut with a pack of little baboon-faced Marties harrying its speeding cart from the rear. "What have you done now?"

"Shanig has just ruined a forty-thousand-credit investment for me," I told him, "by letting my pair of smileys get together. That peace-be-on-you feeling they've been broadcasting is a thing of the past. They feel just the opposite now, and so will anyone who goes near them."

I had to explain it twice before they got it.

Mimasan smileys, as I've said before, are weird little brutes. Unmated, their euphoric mating calls attract them to each other and at the same time protects them from native predators. The catch is that when they mate they coalesce, each complementing the insubstantiality of the other to become a single material entity.

And then, of course, there's no further need of their wistful, coaxing aura.

After that they hate everybody, being newlyweds and not wanting to be disturbed, so of course they radiate an exactly opposite aura that guarantees them the privacy their joint little heart craves. Nothing can come near enough to interrupt them without becoming so rabidly angry that it has to rush off somewhere else looking for something to fight. But you see how it goes.

"And from the row going on in the Argonaut," I finished, "I'd say that Joey and Cora are definitely on their honeymoon."

"You mean they'll be like that always?" Cheryl asked, wide-eyed. "That no one can go near them without flying into a rage?"

"Not always," I said glumly. "Just for five years. After that they divide by fission into a dozen or so baby smileys, and after that the rat-race starts over again. The progeny will be worth plenty, but who's going to stand guard over that amalgamated little demon while it broadcasts hate and damnation in every direction? I won't, and there's not a homo in the System that would take the job for love or--"

The answer hit me like a thumb in the eye, bang in the middle of a sentence.

"Captain Giles," I said. "I've a suggestion that...."

The Captain got it on first bounce. For the first time in history he laughed without benefit of smiley.

It worked out neatly enough, at that. An Areopolitan court decreed that Shanig, being bound by the requirements of Martian law to expiate his crimes with as little expense to the polity as possible, should spend the five years of his sentence guarding Joey-Cora in a force-wall detention area to be set up in Syrtis Major. By the time his term ended my combination smiley would have fissioned, Shanig would have paid his debt to society and my investment would have paid dividends.

It could have been worse. For the time being I was out some forty thousand credits, but I managed to salvage enough for a moderate celebration by contracting with the government to furnish _khiff_ roots from Mimas to keep Shanig from going berserk under Joey-Cora's influence.

The arrangement wasn't too hard on Shanig, even. The worst of it would be the isolation--that, and the packs of Syrtis Major jackals that would crowd around the force-wall at night and howl for his blood.

* * * * *

"Good enough," I told Cheryl after the trial. "That leaves just one small detail to be arranged. I'll have to wangle another loan from Martian Bankings."

She raised a slim brow. "Loan? For a grubstake?"

"For our weekend on Phobos," I said. "Remember?"

She laughed. "There's another little detail you overlooked, William. My ring size is five and one-half."

"Ring?" I said. "Oh, a ring.... Would you rather have a Tellurian diamond, an A-belt fire-opal, or--"

"Nothing expensive," she cut me off. "Something simpler would be more appropriate, I think. Under the circumstances, I'd suggest a plain gold band."

I gaped at her like a swamp-guppy until it seeped through my skull that she was in dead earnest.

"Wait up," I said. "What about Perry Acree?"

She snapped her fingers. "_That_ for Perry. I thought I wanted the little creep until you brought him back, but after that I couldn't bear the sight of him."

"You mean," I said, grasping at any straw, "that you really want to be--"

"Married," she said definitely. "First and firmly, or no Phobos trips!"

"It wouldn't last," I argued. "Being an A-belt prospector's wife is no snap, Cheryl. I'd be out in the _Annabelle_ for weeks on end, slamming around in God knows what kind of dangers. And one of these days I wouldn't come back at all and you'd be a widow."

"_You_ wouldn't be slamming around," she corrected me softly. "_We_ would, Willie dear. I'd be with you every minute."

That did it. It was "Willie dear" already, and she'd be with me every minute. Even in port....

"I'll have to give this some serious thought," I said. "Look, you wouldn't want us to plunge into a deal that wouldn't work out, would you?"

"Of course not," she said with a demure certainty that made my blood curdle. "But this will work, Willie darling. I'll see to that."

I got out of there and went down to Martian Bankings in the devil of a hurry. They were apologetic over selling my grubstake lien, and were glad to advance me a few thousand credits against Joey-Cora's expectations.

For once I passed the Argonaut Club without even looking back. A homo with a skinful of skohl is short on resistance, and resistance just then was what I needed most.

When I reached the blastoff aprons, the _Annabelle's_ rusty old hulk was the sweetest sight I ever saw. I pointed her lovely, meteor-dented nose at the sky and blasted off, and the howling of her jets was like a lullaby in my ears. The starry backdrop of space ahead was like a cosmos-sized painting of all Creation, a master canvas done.