Titan City's Junior Chamber of Commerce had done what it could to help
the situation out, but the notice had been short. A half-dozen nearby
rocks which had been hastily leveled off for parking space, now were
jammed with hundreds of space vehicles, ranging from the nifty two man
job owned by Billy Jones, sports editor of the _Daily Rocket_, to the
huge excursion liners sent out by the three big transport companies.
A few hastily-erected shelters helped out to some extent, but none of
these shelters had a bar and were mostly untenanted.
Moe, the bartender at the Inn, harried with too many customers, droopy
with lack of sleep, saw Oliver Meek bobbing around in the crowd that
surged against the bar, much after the manner of a cork caught in a
raging whirlpool. He reached out a hand and dragged Meek against the
bar.
"Can't you do something to stop it?"
Meek blinked at him. "Stop what?"
"This game," said Moe. "It's awful, Mr. Meek. Honestly. The crowd has
got the fellers so worked up, it's apt to be mass murder."
"I know it," Meek agreed, "but you can't stop it now. The Junior
Chamber of Commerce would take the hide off anyone who even said he
would like to see it stopped. It's more publicity than Saturn has
gotten since the first expeditions were lost here."
"I don't like it," declared Moe, stolidly.
"I don't like it either," Meek confessed. "Gus and those other fellows
on his team think I'm an expert. I told them what I knew about space
polo, but it wasn't much. Trouble is they think it's everything
there is to know. They figure they're a cinch to win and they got
their shirts bet on the game. If they lose, they'll more than likely
space-walk me."
Fingers tapped Meek's shoulders and he twisted around. A red face
loomed above him, a cigarette drooping from the corner of its lips.
"Hear you say you was coaching the Twenty-three bunch?"
Meek gulped.
"Billy Jones, that's me," said the lips with the cigarette. "Best damn
sports writer ever pounded keys. Been trying to find out who you was.
Nobody else knows. Treat you right."
"You must be wrong," said Meek.
"Never wrong," insisted Jones. "Nose for news. Smell it out. Like this.
_Sniff. Sniff._"
His nose crinkled in imitation of a bloodhound, but his face didn't
change otherwise. The cigarette still dangled, pouring smoke into a
watery left eye.
"Heard the guy call you Meek," said Jones. "Name sounds familiar.
Something about Juno, wasn't it? Rounded up a bunch of crooks. Found a
space monster of some sort."
Another hand gripped Meek by the shoulder and literally jerked him
around.
"So you're the guy!" yelped the owner of the hand. "I been looking for
you. I've a good notion to smack you in the puss."
"Now, Bud," yelled Moe, in mounting fear, "you leave him alone. He
ain't done a thing."
Meek gaped at the angry face of the hulking man, who still had his
shoulder in the grip of a monstrous paw.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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