Between Planets Read Online Free PDF Page A

good appetite but with his eyes on the entertainers. There was one man in the cast, portraying Tannhäuser, but Don did not know and did not care whom he represented; he noticed him only when he got in the way. Similarly, he had finished two thirds of what was placed before him without noticing what he was eating.
    Dr. Jefferson said, “Like it?”
    Don did a double-take and realized that the doctor was speaking of food, not of the dancers. “Oh, yes! It’s awfully good.” He examined his plate. “But what is it?”
    “Don’t you recognize it? Baked baby gregarian.”
    It took a couple of seconds for Don to place in his mind just what a gregarian was. As a small child he had seen hundreds of the little satyr-like bipeds— faunas gregariaus veneris Smythii —but he did not at first associate the common commercial name with the friendly, silly creatures he and his playmates, along with all other Venus colonials, had always called “move-overs” because of their chronic habit of crowding up against one, shouldering, nuzzling, sitting on one’s feet, and in other ways displaying their insatiable appetite for physical affection.
    Eat a baby move-over? He felt like a cannibal and for the second time in one day started to behave like a groundhog in space. He gulped and controlled himself but could not touch another bite.
    He looked back at the stage. Venusberg disappeared, giving way to a tired-eyed man who kept up a rapid fire of jokes while juggling flaming torches. Don was not amused; he let his gaze wander around the room. Three tables away a man met his eyes, then looked casually away. Don thought about it, then looked the man over carefully and decided that he recognized him. “Dr. Jefferson?”
    “Yes, Don?”
    “Do you happen to know a Venus dragon who calls himself ‘Sir Isaac Newton’?” Don added the whistled version of the Venerian’s true name.
    “Don’t!” the older man said sharply.
    “Don’t what?”
    “Don’t advertise your background unnecessarily, not at this time. Why do you ask about this, uh, ‘Sir Isaac Newton’?” He kept his voice low with his lips barely moving.
    Donald told him about the casual meeting at Gary Station. “When I got through I was dead sure that a security cop was watching me. And now that same man is sitting over there, only now he’s not in uniform.”
    “Are you sure?”
    “I think I’m sure.”
    “Mmm…you might be mistaken. Or he might simply be here in his off hours—though a security policeman should not be, not on his pay. See here, pay no further attention to him and don’t speak of him again. And don’t speak of that dragon, nor of anything else Venerian. Just appear to be having a good time. But pay careful attention to anything I say.”
    Don tried to carry out the instructions, but it was hard to keep his mind on gayety. Even when the dancers reappeared he felt himself wanting to turn and stare at the man who had dampened the party. The plate of baked gregarian was removed and Dr. Jefferson ordered something for him called a “Mount Etna.” It was actually shaped like a volcano and a plume of steam came out of the tip. He dipped a spoon into it, found that it was fire and ice, assaulting his palate with conflicting sensations. He wondered how anyone could eat it. Out of politeness he cautiously tried another bite. Presently he found that he had eaten all of it and was sorry there was not more.
    At the break in the stage acts Don tried to ask Dr. Jefferson what he really thought about the war scare. The doctor firmly turned the talk around to his parents’ work and branched out to the past and future of the System. “Don’t fret yourself about the present, son. Troubles, merely troubles—necessary preliminaries to the consolidation of the System. In five hundred years the historians will hardly notice it. There will be the Second Empire—six planets by then.”
    “Six? You don’t honestly think well ever be able to do anything with