ed through the crowd till I was beside Oscar Fujisawa. I decided
the truth would need a little editing; I didn't want to use Bish Ware
as my source.

"Oscar, Dad just called me," I told him. "A tip came in to the Times
that Ravick's boys are going to fake a riot and Hallstock's cops are
going to raid the meeting. They want Joe and Tom. You know what
they'll do if they get hold of them."

"Shot while resisting arrest. You sure this is a good tip, though?"

Across the room, somebody jumped to his feet, kicking over a chair.

"That's a double two-em-dashed lie, you etaoin shrdlu so-and-so!"
somebody yelled.

"Who are you calling a so-and-so, you thus-and-so-ing such-and-such?"
somebody else yelled back, and a couple more chairs got smashed and a
swirl of fighting started.

"Yes, it is," Oscar decided. "Let's go."

We started plowing through the crowd toward where the Kivelsons and a
couple more of the _Javelin_ crew were clumped. I got one of the rolls
of quarter sols into my right fist and let Oscar go ahead. He has more
mass than I have.

It was a good thing I did, because before we had gone ten feet, some
character got between us, dragged a two-foot length of inch-and-a-half
high-pressure hose out of his pant leg, and started to swing at the
back of Oscar's head. I promptly clipped him behind the ear with a
fist full of money, and down he went. Oscar, who must have eyes in
the back of his head, turned and grabbed the hose out of his hand
before he dropped it, using it to clout somebody in front of him.
Somebody else came pushing toward us, and I was about to clip him,
too, when he yelled, "Watch it, Walt; I'm with it!" It was Cesario
Vieira, another _Javelin_ man; he's engaged to Linda Kivelson, Joe's
daughter and Tom's sister, the one going to school on Terra.

Then we had reached Tom and Joe Kivelson. Oscar grabbed Joe by the
arm.

"Come on, Joe; let's get moving," he said. "Hallstock's Gestapo are on
the way. They have orders to get you dead or alive."

"Like blazes!" Joe told him. "I never chickened out on a fight yet,
and--"

That's what I'd been afraid of. Joe is like a Zarathustra veldtbeest;
the only tactics he knows is a headlong attack.

"You want to get your crew and your son killed, and yourself along
with them?" Oscar asked him. "That's what'll happen if the cops catch
you. Now are you coming, or will I have to knock you senseless and
drag you out?"

Fortunately, at that moment somebody t