Part 2

"I think you're pulling my leg!" exclaimed the slim blonde at the Agency counter when Winstead was escorted in from the field. "Nobody would travel on the _Leaky Dipper_ without being paid for it. You must have real nerve!"

She leaned uninhibitedly across the counter and planted a kiss on his cheek. He could not help noticing that she was not slim everywhere.

"I assure you, Miss--er--here are my papers."

"Oh, those! Let me see, I have a stamp somewhere in one of my drawers."

* * * * *

She rummaged through several hiding places under the counter. Winstead thought of the compartments on the _Leaky Dipper_. He leaned wearily on one elbow.

"Oh, well, it's time to close up anyway," the girl decided. She swept his papers into a drawer, after a fast glance at them. "We can fix these up tomorrow, Bob."

"You are a very quick reader," Winstead said.

"It said 'Robert L.,' didn't it? That's all I was looking for--your name. Mine's Carole, just to keep things straight. Now, since no more ships are due and no passengers can leave tonight, let's get out of here."

Winstead looked around, but the mechanic who had brought him in from the field had long since disappeared. Other clerks went about their own affairs in the background without showing any interest in him.

Carole hoisted herself onto the counter and twisted across in a swirl of skirts. There was no way for Winstead to avoid catching her. He saw that she was not really slim _anywhere_.

Grabbing his hand, she set off at a smart pace. He had just time to hook his bag off the counter as they passed it.

"You'll be wanting a place to stay," she said. "I'll bet you never slept well on that spaceship."

This so neatly paralleled Winstead's own opinion that he rejected a half-formed impulse to drag his feet.

They dashed pell-mell through a wide exit from the building to a parking lot. Carole led the way to a monstrous groundcar that looked as if its mother had been frightened by a truck. A moment later, they were boosting up to stellar speed along a more-or-less paved road to the city.

"They call it 'Junction,'" Carole informed him. "You'd think they could have picked a better name for the only real city on the planet."

They buzzed through a narrow band of suburbs, along the edge of an open square and decelerated at a well-lighted avenue that looked like an entertainment section. Winstead noted that most of the men and women strolling past the taverns and theaters were dressed in work clothes.

"Just finishing their shifts, like me," Carole explained.

She slowed the monster a bit more upon entering a side street. They came to a section of four- and five-storied buildings whose metal curtain walls had the air of business offices. It developed immediately that they were apartment houses.

Carole pulled into an opening in a row of parked vehicles similar to hers. Winstead got out quickly, since his hostess seemed about to crawl across his lap to reach the door. He stared at the groundcar meditatively.

"Awful heap, isn't it?" said the blonde. "They have to make them that way here, so they can be converted for trucking. The spaceships count on Gelbchen II; everything else--including us--is what can be scraped up to do the job. Well, come on in!"

_I really must be very tired_, Winstead thought as he meekly followed the girl into the lobby of the building.

* * * * *

Inside, two youths in coveralls were lounging on wooden chairs of austere design. One leaped to his feet at the sight of Carole. As he strode toward them, Winstead glanced over his shoulder to make sure of the door.

Turning back, he was just in time to find the young man seizing Carole in an enthusiastic embrace. The two melted together in a passionate kiss. Then the young man stepped back, checked his wristwatch and dashed for the door.

"Good night, kid," he called to her over his shoulder.

Carole waved jauntily. She took Winstead by the elbow.

"That was Wilfie," she explained. "We'll be getting married if we can ever get our job shifts straightened out. I hope I didn't make him late, poor boy--it was his only chance to see me until tomorrow."

Winstead was hardly aware of having been steered into an elevator. When they reached the second floor, Carole led him a few steps along the hall. She used a simple light-key to open an apartment door. Winstead followed her inside wordlessly.

"Let me take your bag," she said. "In here is the bedroom. I'll bet you didn't have that much room on the spaceship."

"Well...."

"Now let's go in the kitchen and see what we can get you for dinner. I might as well feed you, since I figure to charge you fifty credits for the night."

Winstead remained silent by a considerable effort.

He wondered what his expression showed. Carole did not seem to notice anything. She prattled on about the folly of trying to find a room in one of the few hotels boasted by the city of Junction. Most of them, she claimed, would be full of carousing spacers. Meanwhile, she rummaged through a frozen food unit.

Winstead agreed to something in a foil package without knowing what. She popped it into an automatic infra-red heater. He allowed himself to be led by the hand to a large chair in the living room.

"There's the entertainment program for the TV," she told him. "Not that we have much here--most of it is old tapes from Terra. Make yourself comfortable while I change."

She pattered off into the bedroom, leaving Winstead weighing the program in a limp hand. He looked around the room. There were two doors to rooms or exits he had not been shown. What he had seen or could examine from where he sat was very comfortably furnished, with a resilient carpet substitute from wall to wall and new-looking furniture of the simple Gelbchen style. Carole seemed partial to reds and other bright colors. Only the pastels of the walls had prevented a disaster.

_Is it worth fifty credits?_ he asked himself. _On the other hand, if I go out looking for a hotel, will I just happen to have a hard time getting a ship?_

He glanced indecisively at the door to the bedroom into which Carole had vanished. It had been left slightly ajar. About the time he became aware of this, a tinny chime began to sound from the direction of the kitchen.

It continued until Winstead realized that he would have to investigate for himself. He entered the kitchen to find that the automatic heater had flipped up a small sign saying, "_Hot!_"

* * * * *

He guessed the right button to get the door of the appliance open, looked around until he located a tray and tongs, and removed his dinner. Further search supplied him with cutlery. He opened the foil, discovering that he had chosen a meal of roast beef with mashed potatoes and two vegetables he had never seen on Terra.

Carole still had not appeared, so he carried his tray out to the dining area, which was furnished with bronze-colored metal chairs and table. It looked like a dinner for one, he reflected, but he was on a strange planet. As he hesitated, the bedroom door was flung back and footsteps sounded behind him.

"Go ahead and enjoy it," called Carole. "Wine in the sideboard there. Then make yourself at home for the night."

Winstead turned. The girl was bending to zip the front of one shoe. She was clad in coveralls of a yellow that made Winstead blink.

"I'm off," she announced cheerfully. "Got a second-shift job as an ambulance driver. I tell you, it's one big rat race to meet expenses on Gelbchen II! It helps when I can bring home guests from the spaceport, but Wilfie wants me to cut that out when we get married."

She waved and bustled out to the elevator.

Winstead wondered whether he had said good night.

He discovered after some minutes that he was leaning on the table with one thumb in the hot potatoes. He sat down, examining his thumb attentively. After due consideration, he licked off the potato, found a fork, and began to prod dubiously at the local idea of vegetables....

He awoke next morning with a start of surprise at finding himself in neither a net nor a padded compartment. The bed was soft. It invited him to roll over for another half hour's snooze in the faintly perfumed room.

Perfume?

Bedroom ... _Carole!_

Winstead sat straight up as full memory returned.

Everything was quiet. He threw back the electric blanket, checked a clock that must be set to planetary time, and decided that it was early morning. The window filters yielded to trial-and-error manipulation, flooding the room with cheerful sunlight not unlike that of a Terran summer morning. Winstead walked softly to the door and opened it a crack. The room outside remained dim and silent.

He washed in the adjoining bathroom and dressed rapidly. Feeling better prepared for the day, he sallied out to seek breakfast. The first sight that met his eyes was that of Carole sleeping on a couch under an aquamarine blanket she had plugged in at the socket of a floor lamp.

The thought of fifty credits restrained the impulse to pat her blonde head in commiseration. He thought of it a little more, thereby fighting down a mild attack of conscience over appropriating the bed.

_After all_, he thought, _here I have to get my own breakfast. She's probably tired out, but that's the reward of moonlighting. It's her planet, not mine._

* * * * *

Winstead tiptoed to the kitchen door, slipped furtively through, and closed the door as quietly as possible behind him.

Two men eating breakfast at a small table looked up at him amiably.

"Gaagh!" said Winstead.

"Good morning," replied one man, who wore a rather feminine dressing gown.

The other, a ruddy, farmerish individual, grunted past a mouthful of toast.

"I beg your pardon," Winstead said.

"You must be another star traveler," said the gentleman in the dressing gown. "We knew there must be one when we saw Carole on the couch. I hope she gets you out of here quicker than she's finding a ship for me."

"You have been waiting for a spaceship?" Winstead asked.

"Over two weeks now," said the other. "The kid's fair enough about it, I must admit. She can't ship me toward Epseri, so she's been giving me a discount on my room."

"Sit down and have some eggs," invited the farmer type. "Brought 'em into town myself, along with my other produce."

Winstead eyed the platter of fried eggs. They were entirely too large to have come from chickens, but they looked good. He decided not to ask any questions.

It developed after he joined them at the table that the farmer was in the habit of boarding with Carole whenever he came to Junction on business. The traveler, one Cecil Feigelson, excused his borrowing Carole's robe on grounds of the scanty baggage allowed space travelers and the fact that he had been hanging about for so long. They assured him that he looked fine in pink.

Winstead drained his cup of coffee substitute, considered having another.

"You know," he said thoughtfully, "it hardly seems necessary to spend all that time finding a ship headed for Epseri. I--uh--happen to be going that way too. I suspect that a good, close look at the schedules down at the spaceport might show us a way."

"But Carole is the clerk in charge."

"I also happen to know a little about how it's done," said Winstead quietly. He added, "From traveling so much you know."

"Well, if you think anything can be done, I'm all for it."

"When the kid wakes up, she could drive you down," suggested the farmer.

"That should require only a moment to arrange," said Winstead, rising to fill a pitcher with ice water. _Fifty credits a night!_ he thought. _Wait till I get my hands on her shipping schedules!_

Hardly five minutes later, they all spilled out of the elevator into the lobby. Carole was still rather damp and angry. Cecil Feigelson's suitcase zipper was only three-quarters closed. Fortunately, he was wearing pants under the girl's dressing gown, which clashed horribly with Winstead's rumpled orange suit.

"Hey!" someone yelped as they blazed through the lobby.

Young Wilfie catapulted from a chair where he appeared to have been dozing.

_Doesn't he have a home?_ wondered Winstead.

* * * * *

By the time they reached Carole's groundcar outside, the youth had somehow inserted himself into the group in place of the farmer. Winstead set the machine in motion while the others were scrambling for seats.

"Do you know how to drive one of these, friend?" asked Feigelson.

"I am an expert groundcar operator," Winstead assured him.

Unfortunately, he was soon forced to admit, he was accustomed to Terran cars that floated on cushions of air. Although bumps in the spaceport road encouraged a good deal of floating at the speed he was making, the Gelbchen vehicle was really designed for less intermittent wheel-to-ground contact.

The trip seemed shorter, though, than it had the previous evening. Winstead skidded to a halt at their destination and discovered that he was perspiring slightly. His passengers were in a frank sweat and lost several yards trailing him into the terminal and over to the Agency counter.

When they arrived, still quite pale, Winstead was already up to his elbows in shipping schedules and blank forms. A few passing clerks glanced curiously at Feigelson's frilly pink dressing gown, but they were used to outworld garb.

"Wait! That's my Galatlas you're tearing apart!" Carole protested breathlessly.

"How would you know, my dear?" asked Winstead, riffling the pages furiously. "Hah! Just as I thought--this cruise ship down here for supplies, the _Virgo_, is listed to make New Ceres next. The Galatlas shows that New Ceres is halfway to Epseri, Feigelson!"

"Wilfie!" wailed Carole. "Make him stop tearing the place apart like a saloon! Look at that stack of folders spilled all over the floor!"

Wilfie bestirred himself, but he was handicapped by being on the other side of the counter with Carole and Feigelson.

"What do you think you're doing?" he demanded truculently. "Where did you come from, anyway?"

"I came from Terra," said Winstead, pausing in filling out a form, "and I am more than ready to return. Combining a vacation with a business inspection trip occasionally becomes too exciting for a man of my years."

"Inspection trip?" echoed Carole, freezing.

"My hobby," said Winstead. "It keeps one in touch with the people who make the Agency go. This place, now, is the most slapdash, disorganized--Young man! You quit one of your jobs and take over this branch of the Interstellar Travel Agency. Don't argue--of course you can! What is your full name?"

"_Me?_" gasped Wilfie. "Wilfred Evans."

"All right, Evans, you're hired. You'll be able to get married and put a stop to all this nonsense of renting rooms while ships go out without our passengers."

"What authority have you to--" began Carole indignantly.

"The first test of a chief agent," said Winstead, scribbling upon a business card, "is to know when to tell an assistant manager to button her hatch."

Wilfie accepted the card and glanced at both print and scribbling.

"Button your hatch!" he ordered Carole over his shoulder.

* * * * *

She stood silent, her mouth open about the same distance as Feigelson's. Winstead looked about for a local clock, and snatched up one of the sheets strewn about the counter. A departure time listed upon it made him swear. He leaped to Carole's phone, switching on sound and screen with one swipe of his thumb.

The blonde advanced a timid step, to read the card bearing Wilfie's appointment.

"Robert Winstead Lewis, Terra ... President, Interstellar Travel Agency...."

"Winstead" was shouting at a face on the phone screen.

"You tell them who I am!" he demanded, holding up another of his cards to the scanner. "They'll manage to hold the ship three minutes until we reach her!"

He switched off, mopping his forehead with the back of his hand, and started around the counter. Carole swayed weakly against Feigelson's supporting arm.

"Now, then!" snapped Winstead. "This branch will be checked in the near future, Evans. I trust that you are the sort of man who can show a firm hand, should he return home to discover a star traveler in his bedroom."

He smacked the flat of his own hand significantly upon the counter, staring at Carole between the eyes. Wilfie nodded thoughtfully.

Robert Winstead Lewis flagged down an unwary porter driving by on an empty baggage truck.

"Bring the bags, Feigelson!" he commanded, hopping aboard and seizing the controls. "As far as New Ceres, anyhow, we'll be going first-class!"

Picking up speed, the baggage truck squealed around a turn and headed for an exit to the spaceport. The porter looked back with a horrified expression, the pink gown fluttered beside the orange suit one last time, and they disappeared through the portal.

The air about the disorganized counter and reorganized agents continued to vibrate for some minutes.

Finally, the distant roar of a ship lifting for space penetrated to restore a sense of relative peace.