Chapter VII

At a small table with a tiny lamp he opened the papers that Lawson had given him, to read them more thoroughly. The waitress was high breasted in a manner that invited him to look, but he merely barked, "White Star Trail" and went back to his reading.

"Spaceman?" she asked.

Farradyne nodded in an irritated manner. She flounced off after a moment of futile effort to beguile the spaceman.

So when, a moment later, someone slid into the bench beside him, Farradyne turned to tell her to please vacate the premises because he wasn't having any, thanks. Instead of looking into a vapidly willing face, Farradyne's eyes were met with an equally cold blue stare from the face of a hard-jawed man dressed in a jacket tailored to half-conceal the shoulder holster he wore. Farradyne blinked.

"Farradyne?"

"So?" said Farradyne. He tried to think, but all he could cover was the idea that someone was now playing games with guns.

"Hear tell you're running blossoms, Farradyne."

"Who says?"

"People."

"People say a lot of things. Which people?"

"Well, are you?"

"Who, me?"

"Can it and label it," snapped the newcomer.

Farradyne shrugged angrily. "What do you want me to do?" he asked in a mild tone. "You've got the jump on me. You slide into my seat and bar my exit and without introducing yourself you start asking questions that could get me twenty years in bad company, poor surroundings, and no pay."

"Pardon me. You may call me Mike. Michael Cahill is the name."

"Maybe I'm glad to meet you, Mike. Have you any identification that doesn't bark for itself?"

"It's usually good enough."

"Probably. But the numbers on its calling cards are someone else's."

Mike laughed. "That's not bad, Farradyne. But so far as I know, your number isn't among those present."

"I'll bet you could change a number fast enough."

"Could be," nodded Cahill. He turned around over his shoulder and called at the waitress: "Hey, Snooky. Make it two instead of one."

"Mine's White Star."

"That's all right with me. It's easier to drive this rod with a clear head."

"No doubt," said Farradyne. "So now that we are about to drink together, let's face it. You had more in mind than to pass the time of day with a nervous spaceman who wanted to be alone."

"Correct. Or as you birds say, Aye-firm. How's the hellblossom business?"

"That's easy to answer. The answer is that I haven't any, and I'm not in the business."

"People say you are."

"People are wrong."

"Sometimes, but not always."

Farradyne grunted. "Not too long ago, someone accused me openly. The story started when someone suggested that the only way a guy could come from down on his bottom to the top of the heap in one large step was to be among the big-time operators. The heavy-sugar know-how. To the limited imagination, this meant running love lotus."

* * * * *

Mike Cahill was silent while the high-breasted waitress brought their drinks. After she left, Cahill lifted his glass to Farradyne. "Is you is or is you ain't?" he chuckled.

"I ain't," said Farradyne, drinking with Cahill.

"Stop sounding like a parrot. The tomato in the bar on Ganymede must have known something. You spent four years as flat on your duff as a musclebound wrestler and then you come bouncing along in a last-year model Lancaster. So since we know damned well that you're no hellblossom runner, where did you get the stack?"

"Thrift and good management."

"Maybe it's a rich uncle?"

"I'm just a capable operator."

"The label is sour, Farradyne."

"Then what do you make of this?" asked Farradyne, handing Cahill his license folder.

"It looks nice and legal, but it's as phony as a ten-cent diamond and both of us know it. So how did you get it--and the Lancaster to go along with it?"

Farradyne sipped his drink. "Look, Cahill, it just happens that I don't care to tell. This is a gentler version of the old bark, 'None of your blank business!' which I've always considered rude and which has started a lot of fights. But the fact remains that I am not telling."

"It might make a difference if you did."

"Let's stop fencing. I may be of use to you. It might be that you are a SAND agent and it might be otherwise, but I still may be of use to you either way. But the first time I start shooting off my trap, you'll get the idea that I'm not close-mouthed enough for whatever job you have in mind for me. So let's leave it this way, huh? I got a ticket that gets me in and out and a spacer that takes me there and back."

"And that's your story?"

Farradyne nodded, sipped his drink, and offered Cahill a smoke which Cahill took.

"We've had a rather moist spring," observed Cahill.

"It was moister on Venus," commented Farradyne.

"It's on Terra that the weather is fine," said Cahill. "The crops are coming up, I'm told, excellently. Nothing like fresh vegetables."

Farradyne nodded. "No matter how well we convert the planets to Terra-condition, nothing grows like on earth."

"Ever enjoy lying on your back in the sun in a field of flowers with nothing to do but get sunburned?"

"Not for a long time."

"Funny how a guy gets out of his kid-habits," mused Cahill. "And even funnier how he wants to go and do it all over again, but it's never quite the same."

"Yeah."

"Farradyne, you're not sold-up on this next jaunt to Terra, are you?"

"Just one passenger going to Denver."

"Mind if I buy a stateroom?"

"Not at all."

"I want to go pick flowers on Terra," yawned Cahill. "If you like, maybe we can pick some together."

"Maybe we can," said Farradyne, draining his glass and starting to get up. Cahill got up too and led the way out. Farradyne flagged down a taxicab. "Spaceport," he told the driver. "Coming?" he asked Cahill.

"Yeah."