icked the right spot all right. Nineport
was just a little bit beyond nowhere.

Which, of course, was why I was there. I was the only real cop on the
force. They needed at least one to give an illusion of the wheels going
around. The Chief, Alonzo Craig, had just enough sense to take graft
without dropping the money. There were two patrolmen. One old and drunk
most of the time. The other so young the only scar he had was the mark
of the attram. I had ten years on a metropolitan force, earthside. Why I
left is nobody's damn business. I have long since paid for any mistakes
I made there by ending up in Nineport.

Nineport is not a city, it's just a place where people stop. The only
permanent citizens are the ones who cater to those on the way through.
Hotel keepers, restaurant owners, gamblers, barkeeps, and the rest.

There is a spaceport, but only some freighters come there. To pick up
the metal from some of the mines that are still working. Some of the
settlers still came in for supplies. You might say that Nineport was a
town that just missed the boat. In a hundred years I doubt if there will
be enough left sticking of the sand to even tell where it used to be. I
won't be there either, so I couldn't care less.

I went back to the blotter. Five drunks in the tank, an average night's
haul. While I wrote them up Fats dragged in the sixth one.

"Locked himself in the ladies' john at the spaceport and resisting
arrest," he reported.

"D and D. Throw him in with the rest."

Fats steered his limp victim across the floor, matching him step for
dragging step. I always marveled at the way Fats took care of drunks,
since he usually had more under his belt than they had. I have never
seen him falling down drunk or completely sober. About all he was good
for was keeping a blurred eye on the lockup and running in drunks. He
did well at that. No matter what they crawled under or on top of, he
found them. No doubt due to the same shared natural instincts.

Fats clanged the door behind number six and weaved his way back in.
"What's that?" he asked, peering at the robot along the purple beauty of
his nose.

"That is a robot. I have forgotten the number his mother gave him at the
factory so we will call him Ned. He works here now."

"Good for him! He can clean up the tank after we throw the bums out."

"That's _my_ job," Billy said coming in through the front door. He
clutched his nightstick and scowled out from under the br