Tee Ormond sat morosely at the spaceport bar, and alternately wiped his
forehead with a soggy handkerchief, and sipped at his frosted rainbow,
careful not to disturb the varicolored layers of liquid in the tall
narrow glass. Every now and then he nervously ran his fingers through
his straight black hair, which lay damply plastered to his head. His
jacket was faded and worn, and above the left pocket was emblazoned the
meteor insignia of the spaceman. A dark patch on his back showed where
the perspiration had seeped through. He blinked and rubbed the corner of
his eye as a drop of perspiration ran down and settled there.
A casual look would have classified him as a very average looking pilot
such as could be found at the bar of any spaceport; i.e. if space pilots
can ever be classified as average. Spacemen are the last true
adventurers in an age where the debilitating culture of a highly
mechanized civilization has pushed to the very borders of the galaxy.
While most men are fearful and indecisive outside their narrow
specialties the spacemen must at all times be ready to deal with the
unexpected and the unusual. The expression--"Steady as a spaceman's
nerves"--had a very real origin.
A closer look at Tee would have revealed the error of a quick
classification. He gripped his drink too tightly, and his eyes darted
restlessly from side to side, as though searching, searching; yet
dreading to find the object of their search. His expressive face
contorted in a nervous tic each time his eyes swept by the clock hanging
behind the bar. He glanced dispiritedly out the window at the
perpetually cloudy sky and idly watched a rivulet of water race down the
dirty pane. He loosened his collar and futilely mopped at his neck with
the soggy handkerchief, then irritably flung it to the floor.
"Hey, Jo," he yelled to the bartender. "What's the matter with the
air-conditioning? I'm burning up."
"Take it easy," soothed the bartender, consulting a thermometer on the
wall behind him, "it's eighty-five in here. That's as low as the law
allows. Can't have too much difference in the temperature or all my
customers'd pass out when they go outside. Why don't you go into town?
They keep it comfortable under the dome."
"Don't this planet _ever_ cool off?" asked Tee.
The bartender chuckled. "I see you don't know too much about Thymis.
Sometimes it drops to ninety at night, but not too often. You ought to
be here sometime when the clouds part for a minute. If you're caught
outside then, it's third-degree burns for sure."
He glanced down at the nearly empty glass. "How about another rainbow?
If you get enough of them in you, you won't notice the heat--you won't
notice anything." He laughed uproariously at the hoary joke.
* * * * *
Tee looked at him disgustedly and without answering bent to his drink
once more. He felt someone jostle his elbow and turned sideways to allow
the newcomer access to the bar. After a moment he wiped his forehead on
his sleeve. The bartender placed another rainbow before him.
"Hey, I didn't order that," he cried.