r, bluster,
debate, and finally resignation--the reactions were the expected ones,
in the expected order. It was easy, Chind Ramar thought, with all but
the interstellar soldiers of fortune like Jason Ramsey. Ramsey, of
course, would need watching. As for these others....

One of the others, an Earthgirl whose beauty was entirely missed by
Chind Ramar, left the _Polaris_ in a hurry. She either had no luggage or
left her luggage aboard. Jason Ramsey, she thought. She had read Chind
Ramar's mind; a feat growing less rare although by no means common yet
among the offspring of those who had spent a great deal of time
bombarded by cosmic radiation between the stars. She hurried through the
chilling wind toward the Old Quarter of Irwadi City. Panic, she thought.
You've got to avoid panic. If you panic, you're finished....

* * * * *

"So that's about the size of it," Ramsey finished.

Stu Englander nodded. Like Ramsey he was a hyper-space pilot, but
although he had an Earth-style name and had been born of Earth parents,
he was not an Earthman. He had been born on Capella VII, and had spent
most of his life on that tropical planet. The result was not an uncommon
one for outworlders who spent any amount of time on Irwadi: Stu
Englander had a nagging bronchial condition which had kept him off the
pilot-bridge for some months now.

Englander nodded again, dourly. He was a short, very slender man a few
years older than Ramsey, who was thirty-one. He said: "That ties it. And
I mean ties it, brother. You're looking at the brokest Capellan-earthman
who ever got himself stuck on an outworld."

"You mean it?"

"Dead broke, Jase."

"What about Sally and the kids?"

Englander had an Arcturan-earthian wife and twin boys four years old. "I
don't know what about Sally and the kids," he told Ramsey glumly. "I
guess I'll go over to the New Quarter and try to get some kind of a
job."

"They wouldn't hire an outworlder to shine their shoes with his own
spit, Stu. They have got the planetarization bug, and they've got it
bad."

Sally Englander called from the kitchen of the small flat: "Will Jase be
staying for supper?"

Englander stared at Ramsey, who shook his head. "Not today, Sally,"
Englander said, looking at Ramsey gratefully.

"Listen," Ramsey lied, "I've been lucky as all get out the last couple
of months."

"You old pro!" grinned Englander.

"So I've got a few hundred credits just burn