"Never mind what you thought. Fill his order. Send it compliments
of--let's see, Gauyuth-Six is uncommitted--compliments of the Western
Cluster."
* * * * *
It was a fine morning on McWorther's World. Cotton-candy clouds floated
over the fields. Dreaming herons, balanced on slender legs, gave
the shallows of the lake a tufted appearance. A delightful breeze,
artificially generated at the equator, wafted flowering stalks and
rocked the air car and spaceabout at their moorings.
Titus snorted on the veranda and reached for his julep. He was a chunky
little man, with the ruddiness of good health tinting his face and
overflowing onto his partly bald pate.
"Where are you, Titus?" an anxious voice disturbed the quiet of the
house.
"Out here, Love."
Edna appeared in the doorway. Despite her age, there was still the
fascination in her timeless eyes that had snared Titus more than ninety
years ago.
"The chef burned the beans again," she said, frowning.
"Guess I'll have to fix it."
"You know it's not the cooker. It's that darned gravity."
He realized now it was a weight fluctuation that had nudged him from
his nap.
"I've got it _set_ that way, Love," he explained. "We did not get
clouds in the contract. But by varying the gravity control we can have
them for nothing. It all has to do with atmospheric pressure."
Edna cast a resigned glance skyward. "If that's the way you want
it--fleecy clouds and burnt beans--"
The guttural scream of braking jets rattled the windows and sent the
herons winging for the safety of the other hemisphere. Hesitating on
the fringe of the atmosphere, the freighter altered its approach and
landed beside the house.
Titus went out to meet the skipper and his three assistants whose arms
were filled with printed forms.
"You Potentate McWorther?" the skipper asked.