Hawkes in alarm. "What happened to him? Why'd he pass
out?"

Hawkes smiled knowingly. "An ancient Earth beverage known as the Mickey
Finn. Two drops of a synthetic enzyme in his drink; tasteless, but
extremely effective. He'll be asleep for ten hours or more."

"How'd you arrange it?"

"I told the bartender it was in a good cause, and he believed me. You
wait here, now. I want to talk to that Bryson man about your brother's
debts, and then we'll spirit him out to the spaceport and dump him
aboard the _Valhalla_ before he wakes up."

Alan grinned. He was going to have to do some explaining to Steve later,
but by that time it would be too late; the starship would be well on its
way to Procyon. It was a dirty trick to play, he thought, but it was
justifiable. In Hawkes' words, it was in a good cause.

Alan put his arms around his brother's shoulders and gently lifted him
out of the chair; Steve was surprisingly light, for all his lack of
condition. Evidently muscle weighed more than fat, and Steve had gone to
fat. Supporting his brother's bulk without much trouble, Alan made his
way toward the entrance to the bar. As he went past the bartender, the
old man smiled at him. Alan wondered what Hawkes had said to him.

Right now Hawkes was three booths up, leaning over and taking part in an
urgent whispered conference with a thin dark-faced man in a sharply
tailored suit. They reached some sort of agreement; there was a
handshake. Then Hawkes left the booth and slung one of Steve's dangling
arms around his own shoulder, easing the weight.

"There's an Undertube that takes us as far as Carhill Boulevard and the
bridge," Hawkes said. "We can get a ground vehicle there that'll go on
through the Enclave and out to the spacefield."

The trip took nearly an hour. Steve sat propped up between Alan and
Hawkes, and every now and then his head would loll to one side or
another, and he would seem to be stirring; but he never woke. The sight
of two men dragging a third along between them attracted not the
slightest attention as they left the Undertube and climbed aboard the
spacefield bus. Apparently in York City no one cared much about what
went on; it made no difference to the busy Earthers whether Steve were
unconscious or dead.

The ground bus took them over the majestic arch of the bridge, rapidly
through the sleepy Enclave--Alan saw nobody he recognized in the
streets--and through the restricted area that led to the spacef