He looked at me like he was thinking it wouldn't take much timber to
fit me for a coffin. "Okay! But Gertrude's unhappy. She's lonesome,
see? And if she don't get happier pretty soon I ain't sure your tin-pot
ship'll hold her."
He pulled the curtains to and departed. Bucky Shannon groaned. Beamish
cleared his throat and said, rather stiffly,
"Gertrude?"
"Yeah. She's kind of temperamental." Bucky took a quick drink. I
finished for him.
"She's the star attraction of our show, Mr. Beamish. A real blue-swamp
Venusian _cansin_. The only other one on the Triangle belongs to Savitt
Brothers, and she's much smaller than Gertrude."
She was also much younger, but I didn't go into that. Gertrude may be
a little creaky, but she's still pretty impressive. I only hoped she
wouldn't die on us, because without her we'd have a sicker-looking
circus than even I could stand.
Beamish looked impressed. "A _cansin_. Well, well! The mystery
surrounding the origin and species of the _cansin_ is a fascinating
subject. The extreme rarity of the animal...."
We were getting off the subject. I said tactfully, "We'd have to have
at least a hundred U.C.'s."
It was twice what we had any right to ask. I was prepared to dicker.
Beamish looked at me with that innocent dead pan. For a fraction of a
second I thought I saw something back of his round blue eyes, and my
stomach jumped like it was shot. Beamish smiled sweetly.
"I'm not much of a bargainer. One hundred Universal Credits will be
agreeable to me." He dragged out a roll as big as my two fists, peeled
off half a dozen credit slips, and laid them on the table.
"By way of a retainer, gentleman. My attorney and I will call on you in
the morning with a contract and itinerary. Good night."
We said good night, trying not to drool. Beamish went away. Bucky made
grab for the money, but I beat him to it.
"Scram," I said. "There are guys waiting for this. Big guys with clubs.
Here." I gave him a small-denomination slip I'd been holding out. "We
can get lushed enough on this."
Shannon has a good vocabulary. He used it. When he got his breath back
he said suddenly,
"Beamish is pulling some kind of a game."
"Yeah."
"It may be crooked."
"Sure. And he may be screwball and on the level. For Pete's sake!" I
yelled. "You want to sit here till we all dry up and blow away?"
Shannon looked at me, kind of funny. He looked at the bulge in my tunic
where the roll was. He raked back his thick light hair.
"Yeah," he said. "I hope there'll be enough left to bribe the jury." He
poked his head outside. "Hey, boy! More _thildatum_!"
* * * * *
It was pretty late when we got back to the broken-down spaceport where
Shannon's Imperial Circus was crouching beneath its attachments. Late
as it was, they were waiting for us. About twenty of them, sitting
around and smoking and looking very ugly.
It was awfully lonesome out there, with the desert cold and restless
under the two moons. There's a smell to Mars, like something dead and
dried long past decay, but still waiting. An unhappy smell. The blown
red dust gritted in my teeth.
Bucky Shannon walked out into the glare of the light at the entrance to
the roped-off space around the main lock. He was pretty steady on his
feet. He waved and said, "Hiya, boys."
They got up off the steps, and the packing cases, and came toward us. I
grinned and got into my brassies. We felt we owed those boys a lot more
than money. It grates on a man's pride to have to sneak in and out of
his own property through the sewage lock. This was the first time in
weeks we'd come in at the front door.
I waved the money in their faces. That stopped them. Very solemnly,
Bucky and I checked the bills, paid them, and pocketed the receipts.
Bucky yawned and stretched sleepily.
"Now?" he said.
"Now," I said.
We had a lot of fun. Some of the boys inside the ship came out to join
in. We raised a lot of dust and nobody got killed, quite. We all went
home happy. They had their money, and we had their blood.
The news was all over the ship before we got inside. The freaks and the
green girl from Tethys who could roll herself like a hoop, and Zurt the
muscle man from Jupiter, and all the other assorted geeks and kinkers
and joeys that make up the usual corny carnie were doing nip-ups in the
passageways and drooling over the thought of steer and toppings.
Bucky Shannon regarded them possessively, wiping blood from his nose.
"They're good guys, Jig. Swell people. They stuck by me, and I've
rewarded them."