[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
Galaxy Science Fiction February 1956.
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
When overwhelming danger is constantly present,
of course a man is entitled to have a bodyguard.
The annoyance was that he had to do it
himself ... and his body would not cooperate!
The man at the bar was exceptionally handsome, and he knew it. So did
the light-haired girl at his side, and so did the nondescript man in
the gray suit who was watching them from a booth in the corner.
Everyone in the room was aware of the big young man, and most of the
humans present were resentful, for he handled himself consciously and
arrogantly, as if his appearance alone were enough to make him superior
to anyone. Even the girl with him was growing restless, for she was
accustomed to adulation herself, and next to Gabriel Lockard she was
almost ordinary-looking.
As for the extraterrestrials--it was a free bar--they were merely
amused, since to them all men were pathetically and irredeemably
hideous.
Gabe threw his arm wide in one of his expansive gestures. There was a
short man standing next to the pair--young, as most men and women were
in that time, thanks to the science which could stave off decay, though
not death--but with no other apparent physical virtue, for plastic
surgery had not fulfilled its bright promise of the twentieth century.
The drink he had been raising to his lips splashed all over his
clothing; the glass shattered at his feet. Now he was not only a rather
ugly little man, but also a rather ridiculous one--or at least he felt
he was, which was what mattered.
"Sorry, colleague," Gabe said lazily. "All my fault. You must let me
buy you a replacement." He gestured to the bartender. "Another of the
same for my fellow-man here."
The ugly man dabbed futilely at his dripping trousers with a cloth
hastily supplied by the management.
"You must allow me to pay your cleaning bill," Gabe said, taking out
his wallet and extracting several credit notes without seeming to look
at them. "Here, have yourself a new suit on me." _You could use one_
was implied.
And that, coming on top of Gabriel Lockard's spectacular appearance,
was too much. The ugly man picked up the drink the bartender had just
set before him and started to hurl it, glass and all, into Lockard's
handsome face.
* * * * *
Suddenly a restraining hand was laid upon his arm. "Don't do that," the
nondescript man who had been sitting in the corner advised. He removed
the glass from the little man's slackening grasp. "You wouldn't want to
go to jail because of him."
The ugly man gave him a bewildered stare. Then, seeing the forces
now ranged against him--including his own belated prudence--were too
strong, he stumbled off. He hadn't really wanted to fight, only to
smash back, and now it was too late for that.