"I'm Joe, all right," he said. "Only thing I ever traded, though, was a
pocketknife. Got a set of keys for it."
"Oh," I said, my voice conveying my disappointment. I sighed and began
wondering just how I should go about contacting the Joe I was looking
for. My orders said I was to report to Captain Bransten immediately
upon arrival. I figured the hell with Captain Bransten. I outranked him
anyway, and there wasn't much he could do if I decided to stop for a
drink first.
"Where's the Officer's Club?" I asked the Venusian.
"Are you buying information or are you just curious?"
"Can you take me there?" I asked.
"Sure thing, Toots." He picked up my bags and started walking up a
heavily overgrown path. We'd probably walked for about ten minutes when
he dropped my bags and said, "There it is."
The Officer's Club was a plasteel hut with window shields that
protected it from the heat of the sun. It didn't look too comfortable
but I really wanted that drink. I reached into my tunic and slipped
the native thirty solars.
He stared at the credits curiously and then shrugged his shoulders. "Oh
well, you're new here. We'll let it go."
He took off then, while I stared after him, wondering just what he'd
meant. Had I tipped him too little?
I shrugged and looked over at the Officer's Club. From the outside it
looked as hot as hell.
On the inside it was about two degrees short of that mark. I began to
curse Walsh for taking me away from my nice soft job in Space II.
There wasn't much inside the club. A few tables and chairs, a dart game
and a bar. Behind the bar a tall Venusian lounged.
I walked over and asked, "What are you serving, pal?"
"Call me Joe," he answered.
He caught me off balance. "What?"
"Joe," he said again.
A faint glimmer of understanding began to penetrate my thick skull.
"You wouldn't happen to be Joe the trader? The guy who knows all about
Mars, would you?"
"I never left home," he said simply. "What are you drinking?"
That rat! That dirty, filthy, stinking, unprincipled....
_But then, it should be simple to find a man with a name like_ Joe.
_Among the natives, I mean._
Sure. Oh sure. Real simple. Walsh was about the lowest, most
contemptible....
"What are you drinking, pal?" the Venusian asked again.
"Skip it," I said. "How do I get to the captain's shack?"
"Follow your nose, pal. Can't miss it."
I started to pick up my bag as another Venusian entered. He waved at
the bartender.
"Hello, Joe," he said. "How's it going?"
"Not so hot, Joe," the bartender replied.
I listened in fascination. Joe, Joe, Joe. So this was Walsh's idea of a
great gag. Very funny. Very....
"You Major Polk, sweetheart?" the Venusian who'd just come in asked.
"Yes," I said, still thinking of Colonel Walsh.
"You better get your butt over to the captain's shack," he said. "He's
about ready to post you as overdue."
"Sure," I said wearily. "Will you take my bags, please?"
"Roger," he answered. He picked up the bags and nodded at the bar.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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