make him want to stay sober.

"Well, don't say, 'If _you_ can,'" I said. "Say, 'If _we_ can.' You
live on Fenris, too, don't you?"

5

MEETING OUT OF ORDER

Dad called the spaceport hospital, after dinner, and talked to Doc
Rojansky. Murell was asleep, and in no danger whatever. They'd given
him a couple of injections and a sedative, and his system was throwing
off the poison satisfactorily. He'd be all right, but they thought he
ought to be allowed to rest at the hospital for a while.

By then, it was time for me to leave for Hunters' Hall. Julio and Mrs.
Laden were having their dinner, and Dad and Bish went up to the
editorial office. I didn't take a car. Hunters' Hall was only a half
dozen blocks south of the Times, toward the waterfront. I carried my
radio-under-false-pretense slung from my shoulder, and started
downtown on foot.

The business district was pretty well lighted, both from the ceiling
and by the stores and restaurants. Most of the latter were in the
open, with small kitchen and storage buildings. At a table at one of
them I saw two petty officers from the _Peenemuende_ with a couple of
girls, so I knew the ship wasn't leaving immediately. Going past the
Municipal Building, I saw some activity, and an unusually large number
of police gathered around the vehicle port. Ravick must have his
doubts about how the price cut was going to be received, and Mort
Hallstock was mobilizing his storm troopers to give him support in
case he needed it. I called in about that, and Dad told me fretfully
to be sure to stay out of trouble.

Hunters' Hall was a four-story building, fairly substantial as
buildings that don't have to support the roof go, with a landing stage
on top and a vehicle park underneath. As I came up, I saw a lot of
cars and jeeps and ships' boats grounded in and around it, and a crowd
of men, almost all of them in boat-clothes and wearing whiskers,
including quite a few characters who had never been out in a
hunter-ship in their lives but were members in the best of good
standing of the Co-operative. I also saw a few of Hallstock's
uniformed thugs standing around with their thumbs in their gun belts
or twirling their truncheons.

I took an escalator up to the second floor, which was one big room,
with the escalators and elevators in the rear. It was the social room,
decorated with photos and models and solidigraphs of hunter-ships,
photos of record-sized monsters lashed alongside s