And a big slab of roast
beef, and brown gravy, and mashed potatoes. And how about some ice
cream?"

It was a good try; too bad it didn't work.

"Don't worry, Tom," I told him. "I'll get my lawyer to spring you out
of this jug, and then we'll take you to my place and fill you up on
Mrs. Laden's cooking."

The nurse sniffed. She suspected, quite correctly, that whoever Mrs.
Laden was, she didn't know anything about scientific dietetics.

* * * * *

When I got back to the _Times_, Dad and Julio had had their lunch and
were going over the teleprint edition. Julio was printing corrections
on blank sheets of plastic and Dad was cutting them out and cementing
them over things that needed correcting on the master sheets. I gave
Julio a short item to the effect that Tom Kivelson, son of Captain and
Mrs. Joe Kivelson, one of the _Javelin_ survivors who had been burned
in the tallow-wax fire, was now out of all danger, and recovering. Dad
was able to scrounge that onto the first page.

There was a lot of other news. The T.F.N. destroyer _Simon Bolivar_,
en route from Gimli to pick up the notorious Anton Gerrit, alias Steve
Ravick, had come out of hyperspace and into radio range. Dad had
talked to the skipper by screen and gotten interviews, which would be
telecast, both with him and Detective-Major MacBride of the Colonial
Constabulary. The _Simon Bolivar_ would not make landing, but go into
orbit and send down a boat. Detective-Major MacBride (alias Dr. John
Watson) would remain on Fenris to take over local police activities.

More evidence had been unearthed at Hunters' Hall on the frauds
practiced by Leo Belsher and Gerrit-alias-Ravick; it looked as though
a substantial sum of money might be recovered, eventually, from the
bank accounts and other holdings of both men on Terra. Acting
Resident-Agent Gonzalo Ware--Ware, it seemed, really was his right
name, but look what he had in front of it--had promulgated more
regulations and edicts, and a crackdown on the worst waterfront dives
was in progress. I'll bet the devoted flock was horrified at what
their beloved bishop had turned into. Bish would leave his diocese in
a lot healthier condition than he'd found it, that was one thing for
sure. And most of the gang of thugs and plug-uglies who had been used
to intimidate and control the Hunters' Co-operative had been gathered
up and jailed on vagrancy charges; prisoners were being put to work
c