t wider across the shoulders
and thicker through the barrel chest.

"You outworlderth have been deprething the thandard of living on Irwadi
ever thince you came here," the Irwadian said. "All you ever brought
wath poverty and your ditheath germth and more trouble than you could
handle. I don't want your thtink near me. I'm trying to enjoy mythelf.
Get out of here."

* * * * *

It was abruptly silent in the little gambling hall. Since the
establishment catered to outworlders and was full of them, the silence,
Ramsey thought, should have been both ominous and in his favor. He
looked around. Outworlders, yes. But not another Earthman present. He
wondered if he was in for a fight. He shrugged, hardly caring. Maybe a
fight was just what he needed, the way he felt.

"Get out of here," the Irwadian repeated. "You thtink."

Just then a Vegan girl, blue-skinned and fantastically wasp-waisted like
all her kind, drifted over to Ramsey. He'd seen her around. He thought
he recognized her. Maybe he'd even danced with her in the unit-a-dance
halls reserved for humanoid outworlders.

"Are you nuts?" she said, hissing the words through her teeth and
grabbing Ramsey's elbow. "Don't you know who that guy is?"

"No. Who?"

"He's Garr Symm, that's who."

Ramsey smiled at her without mirth. "Do I bow down in awe or run from
here screaming? I never heard of Garr Symm."

"Oh you fool!" she whispered furiously. "Garr Symm is the brand new
number one man of the Irwadi Security Police. Don't you read the
'casts?"

Before Ramsey could answer or adjust to his surprise, the Irwadian
repeated:

"I'm telling you for the third time. Get out."

Ostentatiously, Ramsey reached into his cloak-pocket for a single credit
bill and tossed it on the table.

"The denomination is not sufficient, sir," the albino Sirian croupier
said indifferently. Ramsey had known it was not.

Garr Symm's face turned a darker green. The Vegan girl retreated from
Ramsey's side in fright. Symm raised his hand and an Irwadian waiter
brought over a drink in a purple stem glass with a filigree pattern of
titanium, bowing obsequiously. Symm lurched with the glass toward
Ramsey. "I'm telling you to go," he said in a loud voice.

Ramsey picked up his credit note but stood there. With a little sigh of
drunken contentment, Garr Symm sloshed the contents of his stem glass in
Ramsey's face.

The liquor stung Ramsey's eyes. Many of the oth