Boswellister stood in the rear of the crowd and wrung his hands while the crowd clamored for their samples. "Give us the pitch, then pass out the stuff!" "Lookit that ship! Ain't it a dilly! Whatcha sellin', Wheatsnaps?" "Bring on the dames!" * * * * * They pressed in close to the starship, running their hands over the slick metal surface. "Boy, what a prop! Bet it cost a million bucks. What ya sellin', mister?" "Sanity!" Boswellister shouted from the rear. His men tried to hold their ranks, but the crowd broke the lines, jerking the medals off their chests for souvenirs. Boswellister was almost babbling by the time the commander and his men battled their way to him. "You saw it all! You know!" Boswellister protested. "That Blond Terror and his harem darlings, and those violence-avid ruffians in the audience! Dodie, the stripper, with her lip-licking ogglers! That Calsobisidine pitchman, oozing allure and implied invitation! My equation! My precious equation, buried under a mass of pills, lotions, toys, food, clothes and everything sold with a bump and grind!" They fought to the ship with him, while the crowd opposed each step, yelling for entertainment, for TV cameras, for samples of anything. "How could I have missed it?" Boswellister moaned. "I should have sold them with sex, right from the beginning." "What do you do, handsome? Sing?" A bundle-clutching housewife breathed into his face, stepping on the commander's foot as she shoved in close to Boswellister. "Take me home!" Boswellister beseeched the commander. The officers and crew, tattered, demedaled, bruised and completely defeated in morale, formed a flying wedge and drove for the safety of the ship. The ramp retracted. The port closed, then opened briefly to eject a nosey boy, closing finally on the demands and the mocking laughter and the clangor of arriving police cars. "Raise ship!" the commander ordered. He sopped at the blood from his gashed arm and said to his first officer, "Somebody in that mob used a knife to go after those service stripes." The first shuddered. "Ugly brutes." Boswellister leaned against the corridor bulkhead and sighed as the Ipplinger starship rose from the ground. How could he explain to his poppa? All his brothers had won their worlds. He _would_ do it. He squared his shoulders. After all, he was a Boswellister. Boswellister XIV, no less. A son of Gaphroldshan IX himself, the Prince of Ippling World LXIV, a Royal Prince of the Central Ippling. He walked resolutely to the control room, riding the crest of his refurbished dignity. "Put me down on that planet we spotted last year," he ordered. "What was that star map number?" "G.S.R. 285139-F. R. A. 592-105-R.U. 13," his alert assistant astronomical officer answered, reading the number from a prepared memorandum.