e ship against
the wind, and by that time she was down to a thousand feet, which was
half her diameter. I switched from the shoulder-stock telephoto to the
big tripod job, because this was the best part of it. The ship was
weightless, of course, but she had mass and an awful lot of it. If
anybody goofed getting her down, she'd take the side of the landing
pit out, and about ten per cent of the population of Fenris, including
the ace reporter for the Times, along with it.

At the same time, some workmen and a couple of spaceport cops had
appeared, taken out a section of railing and put in a gate. The
_Peenemuende_ settled down, turned slowly to get her port in line with
the gate, and lurched off contragravity and began running out a bridge
to the promenade. I got some shots of that, and then began packing my
stuff back in the hamper.

"You going aboard?" Tom asked. "Can I come along? I can carry some of
your stuff and let on I'm your helper."

Glory be, I thought; I finally got that apprentice.

"Why, sure," I said. "You tow the hamper; I'll carry this." I got out
what looked like a big camera case and slung it over my shoulder. "But
you'll have to take me out on the _Javelin_, sometime, and let me
shoot a monster."

He said it was a deal, and we shook on it. Then I had another idea.

"Bish, suppose you come with us, too," I said. "After all, Tom and I
are just a couple of kids. If you're with us, it'll look a lot more
big-paperish."

That didn't seem to please Tom too much. Bish shook his head, though,
and Tom brightened.

"I'm dreadfully sorry, Walt," Bish said. "But I'm going aboard,
myself, to see a friend who is en route through to Odin. A Dr. Watson;
I have not seen him for years."

I'd caught that name, too, when we'd gotten the passenger list. Dr.
John Watson. Now, I know that all sorts of people call themselves
Doctor, and Watson and John aren't too improbable a combination, but
I'd read _Sherlock Holmes_ long ago, and the name had caught my
attention. And this was the first, to my knowledge, that Bish Ware had
ever admitted to any off-planet connections.

We started over to the gate. Hallstock and Ravick were ahead of us. So
was Sigurd Ngozori, the president of the Fidelity & Trust, carrying a
heavy briefcase and accompanied by a character with a submachine gun,
and Adolf Lautier and Professor Hartzenbosch. There were a couple of
spaceport cops at the gate, in olive-green uniforms that looked as
t