tigue-at last he said decisively: “I believe it’s Fleischman’s Disease. We don’t know much about it. It stems from some derangement of function in the adrenocorticotropic bodies under free flight, we think. It kicks off a chain reaction of tissue-incompatibilities which affects the cerebrospinal fluid-” He looked at me and his tone changed. “I have some alcohol in the locker,” he said. “Would you like-” I reached for the bulb and then remembered. “Have one with me,” I said. He nodded and, with no stalling, drank from one of the nipples of a twin-valve social flask. I saw his Adam’s apple work. “Not too much,” he cautioned me. “Touchdown’s soon.” I stalled with conversation for a few minutes, watching him, and then swallowed half a pint of hundred proof. I could hardly tow myself back to the compartment. Hangover, grief, fear, and the maddening red tape of Moon debarkation. I must have acted pretty stupidly. A couple of times I heard crewmen say to port officials something like: “Take it easy on the guy. He lost his girl in flight.” The line I took in the cramped receiving room of the endless questionnaires was that I didn’t know anything about the mission. I was Groby, a 6, and the best thing to do would be to send me to Fowler Schocken. I understood that we had been supposed to report to him. They pooh-poohed that possibility and set me to wait on a bench while queries were sent to the Schocken branch in Luna City. I waited and watched and tried to think. It wasn’t easy. The busy crowds in Receiving were made up of people going from one place to another place to do specified things. I didn’t fit in the pattern; I was a sore thumb. They were going to get me … A tube popped and blinked at the desk yards away. I read between half-closed eyes: S-C-H-O-C-K-E-N T-O R-E-C-E-I-V-I-N-G R-E d-U-E-R-Y N-O M-I-S-S-I-O-N D-U-E T-H-I-S F-L-I-G-H-T N-O G-R-O-B-Y E-M-P-L-O-Y-E-D B-Y U-S F-O-W-L-E-R S-C-H-O-C-K-E-N U-N-Q.-U-E-R-I-E-D B-U-T I-M-P-O-S-S-I-B-L-E A-N-Y U-N-D-E-R S-T-A-R-C-L-A-S-S P-E-R-S-O-N-N-E-L A-S-S-I-G-N-E-D R-E-P-O-R-T H-I-M A-C-T D-I-S-C-R-E-T-I-O-N O-B-V-I-O-U-S-L-Y N-O-T O-U-R B-A-B-Y E-N-D. End indeed. They were glancing at me from the desk, and talking
in low tones. In only a moment they would be beckoning the Burns Detective guards standing here and there. I got up from the bench and sauntered into the crowd, with only one alternative left and that a frightening one. I made the casual gestures that, by their order and timing, constitute the Grand Hailing Sign of Distress of the Consies. A Burns guard shouldered his way through the crowd and put the arm on me. “Are you going to make trouble?” he demanded. “No,” I said thickly. “Lead the way.” He waved confidently at the desk and they waved back, with grins. He marched me, with his nightstick in the small of my back, through the startled crowd. Numbly I let him take me from the receiving dome down a tunnel-like shopping street. SOUVENIRS OF LUNA CHEAPEST IN TOWN YE TAYSTEE GOODIE SHOPPE ON YE MOONE YOUR HOMETOWN PAPER MOONSUITS RENTED “50 YEARS WITHOUT A BLOWOUT” RELIABLE MOONSUIT RENTAL CO. “73 YEARS WITHOUT A BLOWOUT” MOONMAID FASHIONS STUNNING CONVERSATION PIECES PROVE YOU WERE HERE Warren Astron, D.P.S. Readings by Appointment Only blinked and twinkled at me from the shopfronts as new arrivals sauntered up and down, gaping. “Hold it,” growled the guard. We stopped in front of the Warren Astron sign. He muttered: “Twist the nightstick away from me. Hit me a good lick over the head with it. Fire one charge at the street-
light. Duck into Astron’s and give him the grip. Good luck-and try not to break my skull.” “You’re-you’re-” I stammered. “Yeah,” he said wryly. “I wish I hadn’t seen the hailing sign. This is going to cost me two stripes and a raise. Get moving.” I did. He surrendered the nightstick, and I tried not to make it too easy or too hard when I clouted him. The buckshot charge boomed out of the stick’s muzzle, shattered the light overhead, and brought forth shrieks of dismay from the strollers. It was thunderous in the vaulted street. I darted through the chaste white Adam door of Astron’s in the sudden darkness and blinked at a tall, thin man with a goatee. “What’s the meaning of this?” he demanded. “I read by appointment-” I took his arm in the grip. “Refuge?” he asked, abruptly shedding a fussy professional manner. “Yes. Fast.” He led me through his parlor into a small, high observatory with a transparent dome, a refracting telescope, Hindu star maps, clocks and desks. One of these desks he heaved on mightily, and it turned back on hinges. There was a pit and handholds. “Down you go,” he said. Down I went, into darkness. It was some six feet deep and six by four in area. It had a rough, unfinished feel to it. There was a pick and shovel leaning against one wall, and a couple of buckets filled with moonrock. Obviously a work in progress. I inverted one of the buckets and sat on it in the dark. After five hundred and seventy-six counted pulse-beats I sat on the floor and stopped counting. After that got too rugged I tried to brush moon-rock out of the way and lie down. After going through this cycle five times I heard voices directly overhead. One was the fussy, professional voice of Astron. The other was the globby, petulant voice of a fat woman. They seemed to be seated at the desk which sealed my hidey-hole. “-really seems excessive, my dear doctor.” “As Madam wishes. If you will excuse me, I shall return to my ephemeris-” “But Dr. Astron, I wasn’t implying-” “Madam will forgive me for jumping to the conclusion that she