"My business," Alan said stubbornly. "Leave me alone." He stalked
angrily away, inwardly raging at this Earther city where things like
this could happen.
"Don't ever let me catch you around here again!" the parlor man shouted
after him. Alan lost himself once again in the crowd, but not before he
caught the final words: "You filthy spacer!"
_Filthy spacer._ Alan winced. Again the blind, unreasoning hatred of the
unhappy starmen. The Earthers were jealous of something they certainly
wouldn't want if they could experience the suffering involved.
Suddenly, he realized he was very tired.
He had been walking over an hour, and he was not used to it. The
_Valhalla_ was a big ship, but you could go from end to end in less than
an hour, and very rarely did you stay on your feet under full grav for
long as an hour. Working grav was .93 Earth-normal, and that odd .07%
made quite a difference. Alan glanced down at his boots, mentally
picturing his sagging arches.
He had to find someone who could give him a clue toward Steve. For all
he knew, one of the men he had brushed against that day was Steve--a
Steve grown older and unrecognizable in what had been, to Alan, a few
short weeks.
Around the corner he saw a park--just a tiny patch of greenery, two or
three stunted trees and a bench, but it was a genuine park. It looked
almost forlorn surrounded by the giant skyscrapers.
There was a man on the bench--the first relaxed-looking man Alan had
seen in the city so far. He was about thirty or thirty-five, dressed in
a baggy green business suit with tarnished brass studs. His face was
pleasantly ugly--nose a little too long, cheeks hollow, chin a bit too
apparent. And he was smiling. He looked friendly.
"Excuse me, sir," Alan said, sitting down next to him. "I'm a stranger
here. I wonder if you----"