The Golden Globe

"That's mine," I said, as forcefully as I dared.

"And you'll get it back, I promise. As soon as you keep your promise."

I fumed, I bristled, and I blustered, but after five minutes of whispered argument to which she responded with nary a word, I admitted defeat. She was going with me.

The next hour would have been tense under the best of circumstances. Since we were more or less not speaking to each other, it was excruciating. Toby felt it, woke up, and kept looking back and forth between us. He thinks all his friends ought to like each other, and frets when they don't.

Poly bought a newspad and we hovered over it like miserable wraiths waiting for Godot. We kept it dialed to BREAKING STORIES, but since none were breaking at the moment we saw the same six stories a dozen times each, including a touching one about a mother cat who kept returning to a burning building until she had all four of her kittens. At least it was touching at first. By the eighth showing I would cheerfully have squashed all four of the mewling ratlike varmints under my heel until their heads cracked like walnuts and booted the mother like a singed and smoking football.

Then we had it.

"Live from Seventh District Prison. Notorious Charonese torturer and arsonist Isambard Comfort is to be released at this hour. Sources close to the warden tell us his victim, Polyhymnia—"

Poly slapped the cutoff switch and scaled the pad into a trash can. I admired the way she compensated for the spin in her aim.

"Let's go," she said. We hustled over to the rope lift and I grabbed a passing strap, tucking Toby under my free arm. I was tugged off my feet. This had to be easier than coming down, I figured.

It was, if banging your head on the hub was easier than falling flat on your ass.

We went to the taxi stand and piled into a cab. Poly had two big, battered old suitcases and her violin. I had Toby and the Pantech.

The cab pilot, who looked like a third-rate palooka who neveh coulda been a contendah, glanced at Toby. Then his crusty, unshaven face split in a wide grin.

"A Bichon Frise," he cooed, pronouncing it properly. He thrust a massive ham fist toward Toby, who froze in consternation at the sheer size of the thing, but stood his ground and, after a cautious sniff, allowed himself to be fondled. The palooka had a gentle touch, and soon Toby's mouth opened and his pink tongue lolled out. He looked at me and sniffed.

"Me and the wife have three of "em," the driver explained. "Won the best of breed in last year's All-Oberon. I'll bet the little fellow's got good lines." He looked at me expectantly, probably thinking I'd whip out Toby's papers and we'd spend a pleasant hour or so discussing his ancestry. I'd met this type before. "Ever breed him?"

"Toby breeds with whom he wants to breed with, and like any gentleman, he never discusses it with me."

"Gotcha. I bet this little fella's got half-breed pups all over the system." He meant it as a joke, and had no idea how accurate he was. "So, where to?"

I gave him the coordinates and he typed them into his launch control, and in a moment we were squirted out the end of the tube and streaking into black space.

It was as crowded as when I arrived, crowded as it always is. We dodged around angular behemoths, cargo ships and passenger liners. In only a few minutes we began our deceleration, and an apparition hove into view.

"Cheez," said the cabby. A truer word was never spoken.

Except for Mars landers, spaceships always operate in total vacuum—sorry, zero pressure. That means they usually look any way they damn well please. They tend to look like a disaster in a metal shop. Things are tacked onto old frames, old stuff is pulled away and big holes are left. Paint is solely for insulation, and who cares if the first quarter inch flakes off?

But if a real-estate agent can convince a rich person to buy a hanging mansion, hideously expensive to maintain and good for nothing but showing off, why shouldn't a solar-yacht broker (a direct descendant of a used-car salesman) get the same sucker to plunk down cash for something that looks like the first person ever to kick the tires might have been Buck Rogers in the twenty-fifth Century? Or Duck Dodgers in the 24½th?

Later I had the ship's computer search the visual library for images comparable to the yacht. It found a Picasso nude, the carmine bee-stung lips of Madelon Theirry, the scarab-blue helmet of Ramses II, Mi

It was all glitz, of course. Nothing visible had any function except to look snazzy. It was the ultimate low-rider of the space lanes.

The cabbie docked quick and dirty. The condition of his docking collar hinted that this was his usual way of docking. As soon as he cycled the lock my ears popped and we heard a hissing sound. The seal was not as tight as it might be, but he didn't seem concerned about it.

"Don't leave yet," I told him, handing over a bill slightly more than twice the fare. We have to see if we're... ah, expected." He nodded, and Poly and I stuffed our luggage through the door and cycled the lock closed behind us. The hissing continued. The sooner out of this death trap, the better.

"Okay," I told her. "You can hand it over now."

She smiled at me, sweetly.

"Hand it over yourself. It's still in your trunk." She got the thermos and opened it. A few glass marbles floated out.

Hell, I know when I'm licked. In fact, I sort of admired her. It had been very slickly done.

"I picked this up at an antique store on the way to the elevator," she said, opening a disposal lock and putting the thermos in.

"Hey, that's worth a hundred dollars," I protested.

"You haven't checked the market lately, 'Sparky.' I paid five."

She cycled the lock and the thermos and marbles jetted out into space with a whoosh. Five dollars? For a priceless old Sparky Jug? How depressing. I was about to say so when there was a bright flash of light. We turned to the only port glass in the lock, and saw another marble as it flashed out of existence, followed in short order by all the rest, and the thermos, which took a little longer and was a lot brighter.

"A snark!" I said.

"Where? Where is it?" We both pressed our faces to the glass, hoping to get a look, but the little zapper could have been miles away. I sighed, opened the Pantech (this time shielding the code plate), and got out my own thermos. I opened it and steam came out. Nestled in chips of dry ice was a two-inch package wrapped in aluminum foil.

I shook Izzy's thumb out of the thermos and opened it. No freezer burn, but it was hard as a rock. It shouldn't matter.

Poly wrinkled her nose at the ugly little thing. The nail was a riot of purples and yellows. I took a deep breath.

"Okay. I've thumbed many a ride in my time, but never quite like this. Let's try it."

The security identiplate was a faintly glowing two-inch circle in the center of a brass escutcheon. Engraved on the brass were these words:

IPS 34903-D

COMETARY CLASS INTERPLANETARY YACHT

"HALLEY"

EXECUTIVE CHARTER SERVICE

PLUTO

That last word had been critical in my thinking when coming up with the plan. The ship's home port was Pluto. Had it come from Charon I wouldn't have dared this stunt. I pressed Izzy's thumb to the plate.