hips before
cutting-up, group pictures of ships's crews, monster tusks, dried
slashers and halberd fish, and a whole monster head, its tusked mouth
open. There was a big crowd there, too, at the bar, at the game
machines, or just standing around in groups talking.

I saw Tom Kivelson and his father and Oscar Fujisawa, and went over to
join them. Joe Kivelson is just an outsize edition of his son, with a
blond beard that's had thirty-five years' more growth. Oscar is
skipper of the _Pequod_--he wouldn't have looked baffled if Bish Ware
called him Captain Ahab--and while his family name is Old Terran
Japanese, he had blue eyes and red hair and beard. He was almost as
big as Joe Kivelson.

"Hello, Walt," Joe greeted me. "What's this Tom's been telling me
about Bish Ware shooting a tread-snail that was going to sting Mr.
Murell?"

"Just about that," I said. "That snail must have crawled out from
between two stacks of wax as we came up. We never saw it till it was
all over. It was right beside Murell and had its stinger up when Bish
shot it."

"He took an awful chance," Kivelson said. "He might of shot Mr.
Murell."

I suppose it would look that way to Joe. He is the planet's worst
pistol shot, so according to him nobody can hit anything with a
pistol.

"He wouldn't have taken any chance not shooting," I said. "If he
hadn't, we'd have been running the Murell story with black borders."

Another man came up, skinny, red hair, sharp-pointed nose. His name
was Al Devis, and he was Joe Kivelson's engineer's helper. He wanted
to know about the tread-snail shooting, so I had to go over it again.
I hadn't anything to add to what Tom had told them already, but I was
the _Times_, and if the _Times_ says so it's true.

"Well, I wouldn't want any drunk like Bish Ware shooting around me
with a pistol," Joe Kivelson said.

That's relative, too. Joe doesn't drink.

"Don't kid yourself, Joe," Oscar told him. "I saw Bish shoot a knife
out of a man's hand, one time, in One Eye Swanson's. Didn't scratch
the guy; hit the blade. One Eye has the knife, with the bullet mark on
it, over his back bar, now."

"Well, was he drunk then?" Joe asked.

"Well, he had to hang onto the bar with one hand while he fired with
the other." Then he turned to me. "How is Murell, now?" he asked.

I told him what the hospital had given us. Everybody seemed much
relieved. I wouldn't have thought that a celebrated author of whom
nobody had ever heard