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As Doc returned with a weary curse and pocketed it, the scarlet hatch unzipped and Keeper swaood humor now and whistled the tune of "I&039;ll Marry the Man on the Bridge" as he began to study certain rounds on scrip-till and one he asked Spar suspiciously, "What was that you handed the old geezer?"

"His purse," Spar replied easily "He just forgot it now" He shook his loosely fisted hand and it chinked "Doc paid in coins, Keeper" Keeper took the, Spar"

As Spar dove toward the scarlet hatch to take up larboard tubes, Suzy eed and passed hily snatched the pouch of moonmist Keeper offered her with e on her behalf, but it was hard for hi appointht fell swiftly as a hurled knife, he was hardly aware of it and felt none of his custohts in the Bat Rack They shone brightly while beyond the translucent walls there was a

Business picked up a little Suzy made off with the first likely mark Keeper called Spar to take over the torus, while he hi it to a clipboard held against his bent knees, wrote on it laboriously, as if he were thinking out each word, perhaps each letter, often wetting his pencil in his mouth He beca he drifted off toward the black below hatch, rotating over and over The paper got dirtier and dirtier with his scrawlings and sht passed lare of Loafday dawn startled him Most of the customers made off to take their siestas

Spar wondered what excuse to give Keeper for leaving the Bat Rack, but the problerie, loafer, to the Exec Wait" He took the repacked, orange bag from its nook and pulled on the cords to ht "On your way deliver this at Crown&039;s Hole With all courtesy and subservience, Spar! Now, on the jue into his only pocket orking zipper and drew that tight Then he dove slowly toward the aft hatch, where he aletting rid of the cat, he caught hold of hiently thrust hi, "You&039;ll take a trip with me, little Kim" The cat set his claws in the thin material and steadied hi in reen and red He guided hi that hethe centerline After curving past the larger cylinders of the fore-and-aft gangways, the corridor straightened Twice he worked his way around centrally slung fans whirring so softly that he recognized the thean to s With a shiver he passed a black round that was the elastic-curtained door to Hold Three&039;s big chewer He reen of the Gardens of Apollo and beyond it a huge black screen, in which hovered toward the aft side a se circle that always filled Spar with inexplicable sadness and fear He wondered in how many black screens that doleful circle was portrayed, especially in the starboard end of Windrush He had seen it in several

So close to the gardens that he could reen shoots and the silhouette of a floating far the line and he floated by an open hatch, which bothscent of musky, mixed perfu in, he could see the interlobular rooe black screen with the red-mottled dun disk placed similarly off center

Froently, "Sstop! Ssilencce, on your liffe!" The cat had poked his head out of the slopsuit&039;s neck His ears tickled Spar&039;s throat Spar was getting used to Ki was hardly needed He had just seen the half-dozen floating naked bodies and would have held still if only froenitals any more than ears at the distance But he could see that save for hair, each body was of one texture: one very dark brown and the other five - or was it four? no, five - fair He didn&039;t recognize the tith platinuolden hair, who also happened to be the two palest He wondered which was Crown&039;s new girl, name of Al

There was the glint of irl, and he could just discern the red blur of a slender, five-forked tube which went froe that even with a girl to play bartender, Crown should have moonbrew served in such plebeian fashion in his palatial Hole Of course the tube ht carryto open a rival bar to the Bat Rack? A poor time, these days, and a worse location, he

"Sslink offf !" Kiers found a snap-ring by the hatch With the faintest of clicks he secured it around the draw-cords of the pouch and then pulled back the way he had come

But faint as the click had been, there was a response frorowl

Spar pulled faster at the centerline As he rounded the corner leading inboard, he looked back

Jutting out fro, prick-eared head narrower than a roas repeated

It was ridiculous he should be so frightened of Hellhound, Spar told hi Why, Crown so to the Bat Rack

Perhaps it was that Hellhound never growled in the Bat Rack, only talked in a hundred or socouldn&039;t pull hi the centerline at any speed He lacked sharp claws Though hefrom one side of the corridor to another

This ti chewer et new eyes today and frightened as a child!

"Why did you try to scare rily