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financial mis-dealings, Tully had invited Ruqaiyya’s sister, Katmer Al Shei, to become his new partner in the Pasadena Corp. to share the expenses and risks of operating an independent mail packet ship.
    He’d apparently benefited from both the marriage and the partnership. He managed to stay constantly employed, even though the rating for him and the crews he assembled was one to two ranks lower than those Al Shei put together. But judging from the pitch and timbre of Al Shei’s voice when she talked to him, there was something serious going on and that it was affecting Dobbs’ new employer. Add that to her abrupt reaction when she’d found out what he had been whistling, and it would take a greener Fool than Dobbs to miss the fact that something was seriously wrong.
    Need to plug in and find out what’s what. Dobbs got up and left the cafe.
    The lobby was crowded, but she threaded an easy path between the trickles of patrons. Out of the corner of her eye she saw the bigoted station worker who had slammed into Al Shei. People like him were commonly called “gerbils” because they spent their time running around inside wheel-shaped space stations. They could become be acerbic, opinionated and develop pretty crude senses of humor.
    Dobbs darted around into his field of vision.
    “It’s you!” she shouted. “I knew it was you!” She slapped her hand against her forehead. “Holy sun and stars, I cannot believe they let you in here, you wart-brained, six-toed, fractured excuse for a corpse’s ass!”
    The gerbil looked around confused, as members of the passing crowd slowed down to stare.
    “Who could’ve thought they’d let you just walk around in here!” Dobbs spread her hands out and appealed to the crows. “I can’t believe it! Can you believe it?” she demanded of a woman in a bright red sari. “Him! The ugly, twisted, burn-brain! They let him just… ”
    “Damp it down, Sister!” shouted the gerbil. “Who are you?”
    Dobbs gave him a look of utter incredulity. “You mean you don’t know me?”
    “No!” The gerbil stabbed a finger at her. “And I’ll lay any money you don’t know me!”
    “Oh!” Dobbs covered her mouth with her hand and let her eyes go wide. “You have to know somebody in order to insult them! I’m sorry.” She gave him an apologetic grin. “See, you got me confused when you assaulted a total stranger back there.”
    His eyes blazed and his big, calloused hand rose.
    “Master Evelyn Dobbs.” She drew herself up to her full height. “Intersystem Guild of Fools.”
    They stood there like that for a moment, then the gerbil, anger burning in his eyes, lowered his hand.
    Fools could not be touched, by anybody. If he committed assault, the Guild would register his name and no crew that he worked on would be able to hire a professional Fool. There were a lot more gerbils than there were Fools. If the Guild black-balled him, he would never be able to work a first-class ship or station again.
    He could, of course, report her and she’d have to take the backlash. The Guild had very strict guidelines about the proper use of casual clowning.
    But he just gave her a look that could have blistered paint as he turned and shouldered his way through the gathering crowd.
    Whistling, Dobbs left the hotel in the exact opposite direction.
    Despite the fact that Guild scale pay was generous by shipper standards, a full room in the luxury hotel was more than Dobbs wanted to pay out for just the few days that she’d be on-station. Instead, she had berthed herself in what the advertising referred to as a “traditional, economical, Tokyo-style cabin.” That meant it was a private bunk with all the boards and terminals within arm’s reach on the walls. It included a stowage area for her baggage and access to the showers.
    Her rented bed was two modules over and three levels up. All the modules in this section were dedicated to public business, which meant they were all crowded. Dobbs