nquered, and his
eyelids blinked. He looked up to find a strange man beside his bed.
The man was fat, fussy, pompous. But he looked prosperous, and seemed
excited.

Denver glanced warily about the room. After all, he had been strained.
Perhaps it was all part of delirium. No sign of the girl either. Could
he have imagined her, too? He sighed and remembered Darbor.

"Tod Denver?" asked the fat, prosperous man. "I got your name from a
Sergeant of Security Police in Crystal City. He says you own a
moondog. Is that true?"

Denver nodded painfully. "I'm afraid it is. What's the charge?"

The stranger seemed puzzled, amused. "This may seem odd to you, but
I'm in the market for moondogs. Scientific laboratories all over the
system want them, and are paying top prices. The most unusual and
interesting life form in existence. But moondogs are scarce. Would you
consider parting with yours? I can assure you he'll receive kind
treatment and good care. They're too valuable for anything else."

Denver almost blanked out again. It was too much like the more
harrowing part of his dreams. He blinked his eyes, but the man was
still there.

"One of us is crazy," he mused aloud. "Maybe both of us. I can't sell
Charley. I'd miss him too much."

Suddenly, as it happens in dreams, Soleil Martin stood beside him. Her
arms were empty, but she stood there, smiling.

"You wouldn't have to sell Charley," she said, giving Denver a
curious, thrusting glance. "Had you forgotten that you're now a
father, or foster-grandfather, or something. You have moonpups, in
quantity. I had to let you lie there while I put the little darlings
to bed. And it's not Charley any more, please. Charlotte. It has to be
Charlotte."

Denver paled and groaned. He turned hopefully to the fat stranger.

"Say, mister, how many moonpups can you use?"

"All of them, if you'll sell." The man whipped out a signed, blank
check, and quickly filled in astronomical figures. Denver looked at
it, whistled, then doubted first his sanity, then the check.

"Take them," Denver murmured. "Take them, quick, before you change
your mind, or all this evaporates in dream."

A moondog has no nerves. Charley--or Charlotte--had none, but the
brood of moonpups had already begun to get on whatever passed for
nerves in his electronic make-up. He was glad and relieved to be rid
of his numerous progeny. He, or she, showed passionate and
embarrassing affection for Denver, and even generou