Four-Day Planet

feet except the square buildings, two hundred yards apart, which rest on foundations on the Bottom Level and extend up to support the roof. The Times has one of these pill

except for the buttresses at the corners and sol

lace was cluttered with equipment we hadn't gotten around to repairing or installing, merchandise we'd taken in exchange for advertising, and vehicles, our own and everybody else's. A couple of mechanics were tinkering on one of

he jeep, and I hunted aroun

have dinner with

said. "Why, no, thanks, Walt. I have to get back to

ish? Want to take

delighted,"

o; Bish looked as though he had wanted to say something and then thought better of it. We floated Murell's stuff a

ght it. He was putting together the stuff I'd transmitted in for the audiovisual newscast. Over across the room, the rest of the Times staff, Julio Kubanoff, was sitting at the composing machine, his peg leg propped up and an earphone on, his fingers punching rapidly at the keyboa

right?" I asked Dad,

corner of his eye, he saw the lifter full of luggage, and saw somebody with me. "Mr. Murell? Please excuse me for a moment, till I get this bl

read-snail almost as soon as he got off the ship. They have him at the spacepo

ed slightly, and he took the pipe out of his mouth and lo

hors. That would have been a nice business; story would have gotten back to Terra, and been most unfor

ish said. "I gather the spaceport people wouldn't be too happy about giving the public the impression that t

that was one of his basic articles of faith. "If the public learned about this-" he went on, and then saw where he was heading a

ut he just smiled, as though he were a

r me," he said. "I must not confuse my public. Ju

you going to cover this meeting at Hun

I mis

self," he said. "I'm afraid this me

ittle short of eighteen, but you're sixty. I can see th

l little laugh a

f a sudden, we find they're shielding us." His pipe had gone out again and he relit

ice-only. All the time he was talking,

ether would be like trying to build a spaceship with a jackknife and a tack hammer

, I thought, Ravick wasn't going to like it. I would have to start wearing my pistol again. Then he made a tape on the landing of the Peenemünde and the arrival of Murell, who he said had met with a slight accident after leaving the ship. I took that over to Julio when Dad was finished, along with a tape on the announced tallow-wax price cut. Julio only

general congregating and loafing place, is as big as the editorial room above. Originally, it was an office, at a time when a lot of Fenris Company office work was being done here. Some of the furniture is original, and some was made for us by local cabinetmakers out of native ha

r. Dad, who seldom drinks, keeps a few bottles around for guests. Seems most of our "guests" part with infor

g the bottles in the liquor cabinet next to the refrigerator. "I'm

irit communication from him, I will not accept it as genuine wi

hat I was fixing for

believe," he said, "that I sha

ampaign was having results. Dad looked positively s

nimous," he said. "Fix me u

d we carried them over to the tab

"Just a trifle on the mild si

had to go along. So I made three more. We were finishing them when Mrs. Laden started bringing in the dinner. Mrs. Laden is a widow; she has been with us since my mother died,

has her own dinner with Julio. That way, while they're eating he can te

acitated visitor came under the latter head. I told Dad and Bish about my observations, beginn

he exclaimed. "What kind of a r

some of the other items are a little suspicious, but even if he isn't an author, he may have some legitimate business here and, having heard a few stories

oup spoon poised halfway to his mouth for at leas

said when I was through

so my guess is that they're holding it for a rise in price. There's only one way that could happen, and that, literally, would

r. Instead, he hit the table with his fist; not, f

d then, in the general excitement, somebody might clobber Mort Hallstock, and that'd be grand slam. Afte

to hear you advocating

t me for a

thing; don't make any mistake about that. But there's one thing more horrible

colonists, they evacuated the government along with them. The thousand who remained were all too busy keeping alive to worry about that. They didn't even care when Fenris was reclassified from Class III, uninhabited but inhabitable, to Class II, inhabitable only in artific

only casualties. Between Ravick's goons and Hallstock's police, they have close to a hundred men. I

ht-years of space for the Government to run around to all of them wiping everybody's noses. As long as things are quiet here, they'll continue to do nothing for

a lot worse causes. But these people will all have friends and relatives who will take it up for them. Start killing people here in a faction fight, and somebody

little settlements on the other islands and on the mainland had started when some group or family moved out of Port Sandor because of the enmity

ry with the sort of thing Mort Hallstock and

I suppose. Only make sure you don't leave a single one of them alive when it's over. But if you can get the Federatio

story off about crime and corruption on Fenri

es and brought us our main course. Bish

you can stall off the blowup till the Cape Canaver

ething that would give Bish a purpose; s

I said. "Say, 'If we can.' You