Life on other planets -- Fiction; Science fiction; Space warfare -- Fiction
So it went for days. And finally, it was an immense relief that the
hilariously drunken Lensman, his money gone to the last millo, went
roistering up the street with a two-quart bottle in each hand; swigging
now from one, then from the other; inviting bibulously the while
any and all chance comers to join him in one last, fond drink. The
sidewalk was not wide enough for him, by half; indeed, he took up most
of the street. He staggered and reeled, retaining any semblance of
balance only by a miracle and by his rigorous spaceman's training.
He threw away one empty bottle, then the other. Then, as he strode
along, so purposefully and yet so futilely, he sang. His voice was
not particularly musical, but what it lacked in quality of tone it
more than made up in volume. Kinnison had a really remarkable voice,
a bass of tremendous power, timbre, and resonance; and, pulling out
all the stops, in tones audible for two thousand yards against the
wind, he poured out his zestfully lusty reveler's soul. His song was
a deep-space chanty that would have blistered the ears of any of the
gentler spirits who had known him as Kimball Kinnison, of Earth; but
which, in Miners' Rest, was merely a humorous and sprightly ballad.
Up the full length of the street he went. Then back, as he put it, to
"Base." Even if this final bust did make him sicker at the stomach than
a ground-gripper going free for the first time, the Lensman reflected,
he had done a mighty good job. He had put Wild Bill Williams, meteor
miner, of Aldebaran II, on the map in a big way. It wasn't a faked and
therefore fragile identity, either; it was solidly, definitely his own.
Staggering up to his friend Strongheart he steadied himself
with two big hands upon the latter's shoulders and breathed a
forty-thousand-horsepower breath into his face.
"I'm boiled like a Tellurian hoot-owl," he announced, still happily.
"When I'm this stewed I can't say 'partic-hic-hicu-lar-ly' without
hick-hicking, but I would partic-hic-hicularly just like one more
quart. How about me borrowing a hundred on what I'm going to bring in
next time, or selling you--"
"You've had plenty, Bill. You've had lots of fun. How about a good
chew of sleep-happy, huh?"
"That's a thought!" the miner exclaimed eagerly. "Lead me to it!"
* * * * *
A stranger came up unobtrusively and took him by one elbow. Strongheart
took the other, and between them they walked him down a narrow hall and
into a cubicle. And while he walked flabbily along Kinnison studied
intently the brain of the newcomer. _This_ was what he was after!
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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