The Star Beast Read Online Free PDF Page B

operated on the rule of making the other fellow do the running around; otherwise the department’s tremendous load of business would never get done. “I would like to avoid that trip out into the country, as I intend to hold my ship and get back to Capital tomorrow afternoon, if possible. It’s rather urgent…a matter of the Martian treaty.” This last was Greenberg’s standard fib when he wanted to hurry someone not in the department.
    Judge O’Farrell said that he would arrange it. “We’ll rig a temporary pen on the lawn outside the courthouse.”
    “Swell! See you tomorrow, Judge. Thanks for everything.”
    Judge O’Farrell had been on a fishing trip two days earlier when Lummox had gone for his walk. The damage had been cleaned up by his return and, as a fixed principle, he avoided hearing or reading news reports or chitchat concerning cases he might have to try. When he phoned Chief-of-Safety Dreiser he expected no difficulty about moving Lummox.
    Chief Dreiser went through the roof. “Judge, are you out of your head?”
    “Eh? What’s ailing you, Deacon?”
    Dreiser tried to explain; the judge shrugged off his objections. Whereupon they both phoned the mayor. But the mayor had been on the same fishing trip; he threw his weight on O’Farrell’s side. His words were: “Chief, I’m surprised at you. We can’t have an important Federation official thinking that our little city is so backwoods that we can’t handle a small thing like that.” Dreiser groaned and called the Mountain States Steel & Welding Works.
    Chief Dreiser decided to move Lummox before daylight, as he wished to get him penned up before the streets were crowded. But nobody had thought to notify John Thomas; he was awakened at four in the morning with a sickening shock; the wakening had interrupted a nightmare, he believed at first that something dreadful had happened to Lummox.
    Once the situation was clear he was non-cooperative; he was a “slow starter,” one of those individuals with a low morning blood-sugar count who is worth nothing until after a hearty breakfast—which he now insisted on.
    Chief Dreiser looked angry. Mrs. Stuart looked mother-knows-best and said, “Now, dear, don’t you think you had better…”
    “I’m going to have my breakfast. And Lummox, too.”
    Dreiser said, “Young man, you don’t have the right attitude. First thing you know you’ll be in eyen worse trouble. Come along. You can get breakfast downtown.”
    John Thomas looked stubborn. His mother said sharply, “John Thomas! I won’t have it, do you hear? You’re being difficult, just like your father was.”
    The reference to his father rubbed him even more the wrong way. He said bitterly, “Why don’t you stand up for me, Mum? They taught me in school that a citizen can’t be snatched out of his home any time a policeman gets a notion. But you seem anxious to help him instead of me . Whose side are you on?”
    She stared at him, astounded, as he had a long record of docile obedience. “John Thomas! You can’t speak to your mother that way!”
    “Yes,” agreed Dreiser. “Be polite to your mother, or I’ll give you the back of my hand—unofficially, of course. If there is one thing I can’t abide it’s a boy who is rude to his elders.” He unbuttoned his tunic, pulled out a folded paper. “Sergeant Mendoza told me about the quibble you pulled the other day…so I came prepared. There’s my warrant. Now, will you come? Or will I drag you?”
    He stood there, slapping the paper against his palm, but did not offer it to John Thomas. But when John Thomas reached for it, he let him have it and waited while he read it. At last Dreiser said, “Well? Are you satisfied?”
    “This is a court order,” John Thomas said, “telling me to appear and requiring me to bring Lummox.”
    “It certainly is.”
    “But it says ten o’clock. It doesn’t say I can’t eat breakfast first…as long as I’m there by ten.”
    The Chief took a