ldn't do it. We'd been trying long
enough.

The two girls in bikinis in front of me pushed on, still gabbling
about the fight one of them had had with her boy friend, and I closed
up behind the half dozen monster-hunters in long trousers, ankle boots
and short boat-jackets, with big knives on their belts. They must have
all been from the same crew, because they weren't arguing about whose
ship was fastest, had the toughest skipper, and made the most money.
They were talking about the price of tallow-wax, and they seemed to
have picked up a rumor that it was going to be cut another ten
centisols a pound. I eavesdropped shamelessly, but it was the same
rumor I'd picked up, myself, a little earlier.

"Hi, Walt," somebody behind me called out. "Looking for some news
that's fit to print?"

I turned my head. It was a man of about thirty-five with curly brown
hair and a wide grin. Adolf Lautier, the entertainment promoter. He
and Dad each owned a share in the Port Sandor telecast station, and
split their time between his music and drama-films and Dad's
newscasts.

"All the news is fit to print, and if it's news the _Times_ prints
it," I told him. "Think you're going to get some good thrillers this
time?"

He shrugged. I'd just asked that to make conversation; he never had
any way of knowing what sort of films would come in. The ones the
_Peenemuende_ was bringing should be fairly new, because she was
outbound from Terra. He'd go over what was aboard, and trade one for
one for the old films he'd shown already.

"They tell me there's a real Old-Terran-style Western been showing on
Voelund that ought to be coming our way this time," he said. "It was
filmed in South America, with real horses."

That would go over big here. Almost everybody thought horses were as
extinct as dinosaurs. I've seen so-called Westerns with the cowboys
riding Freyan _oukry_. I mentioned that, and then added:

"They'll think the old cattle towns like Dodge and Abilene were awful
sissy places, though."

"I suppose they were, compared to Port Sandor," Lautier said. "Are you
going aboard to interview the distinguished visitor?"

"Which one?" I asked. "Glenn Murell or Leo Belsher?"

Lautier called Leo Belsher something you won't find in the dictionary
but which nobody needs to look up. The hunters, ahead of us, heard
him and laughed. They couldn't possibly have agreed more. He was going
to continue with the fascinating subject of Mr. Leo Belshe