The seconds swept by. Ke-teeli was casting his razor-edged glare in
our direction. I brushed the chewed finger nails from the keyboard of
my electronic piano.

Then it happened.

* * * * *

From the entrance of _The Space Room_ came a thumping and a grating
and a banging. Suddenly, sweeping across the dance floor like a cold
wind, was a bass fiddle, an enormous black monstrosity, a refugee from
a pawnbroker's attic. It was queerly shaped. It was too tall, too
wide. It was more like a monstrous, midnight-black hour-glass than a
bass.

The fiddle was not unaccompanied as I'd first imagined. Behind it,
streaking over the floor in a waltz of agony, was a little guy, an
animated matchstick with a flat, broad face that seemed to have been
compressed in a vice. His sandcolored mop of hair reminded me of a
field of dry grass, the long strands forming loops that flanked the
sides of his face.

His pale blue eyes were watery, like twin pools of fog. His
tightfitting suit, as black as the bass, was something off a park
bench. It was impossible to guess his age. He could have been anywhere
between twenty and forty.

The bass thumped down upon the bandstand.

"Hello," he puffed. "I'm John Smith, from the Marsport union." He
spoke shrilly and rapidly, as if anxious to conclude the routine of
introductions. "I'm sorry I'm late, but I was working on my plan."

A moment's silence.

"Your plan?" I echoed at last.

"How to get back home," he snapped as if I should have known it
already.

Hummm, I thought.

My gaze turned to the dance floor. Goon-Face had his eyes on us, and
they were as cold as six Indians going South.

"We'll talk about your plan at intermission," I said, shivering. "Now,
we'd better start playing. John, do you know _On An Asteroid With
You_?"

"I know _everything_," said John Smith.

I turned to my piano with a shudder. I didn't dare look at that
horrible fiddle again. I didn't dare think what kind of soul-chilling
tones might emerge from its ancient depths.

And I didn't dare look again at the second monstrosity, the one named
John Smith. I closed my eyes and plunged into a four-bar intro.

Hammer-Head joined in on vibro-drums and Fat Boy on clarinet, and
then--

My eyes burst open. A shiver coursed down my spine like gigantic mice
feet.

The tones that surged from that monstrous bass were ecstatic. They
were out of a jazzman's Heaven. They were great rolling