Round-and-Round Trip by H. B. Fyfe (love books to read .txt) 📕

those he encountered.

At one point, he came to himself in the midst of drawing a current dress design on the bar for one of the girls. Callahan, whose return he had missed, dissuaded the lady from taking his charge home with her as a gesture of pure gratitude. He declared that Winstead had just enough time for a nap.

Winstead's next awakening was in the echo of a terrified scream.

A light was turned on and he discovered that the man-eating vine which had been strangling him was in reality an acceleration net. The face that floated before him was clean-shaven and anxious.

With considerable mental effort, Winstead deduced that the face was inquiring as to his health.

"Quite ... fine ... thank ... you," he answered with difficulty. "Haven't we met somewhere?"

"Sure! Last week, Mr. Winstead, when we took you to Topaz IV," said the face.

Winstead tried shaking his head. It did not hurt—very much—but he felt that his thinking was terribly slow. Then things began to click. He recognized the man as the second pilot of the Stellar Queen. It might have been easier had the spacer not been standing upside down to Winstead's twisted position.

He groped dizzily for a question that would not make him sound a complete idiot. The pilot saved him.

"Callahan, back on Topaz IV," he volunteered, "asked us to tell you the best routing he could figure was to go on with us to Queen Bess III. It's a busy spaceport, so he thinks you can make better connections."

"Oh. I ... see," murmured Winstead.

Unzipping the opening of his net, he floated himself out gingerly.

"I hope it's all right, Mr. Winstead," said the spacer. "I know you went in there on an Altair IV destination, but old Callahan seemed to think he was sending you to Fomalhaut VIII. To tell the truth, I think he was a little over-fueled."

"I ... didn't notice," said Winstead. "Tell me—how long were you down at Topaz?"

"Three days," the spacer told him. "They sure took a liking to you there, Mr. Winstead. A big crowd brought you out to the spaceport with Callahan. We found your bag under his desk by ourselves, but I don't know where you got that orange suit."

Winstead looked down at his clothing for the first time and flinched.

"But that was yesterday," continued the pilot. "You ought to be feeling like some chow by now, eh? Hey wait—the door is down here, Mr. Winstead!"

In six days, including one of landing maneuvers, they reached Queen Bess III, a very Terran world that was a minor crossroads of space travel.

Here, Winstead bade farewell to the Stellar Queen. His first stop was the communications office. He left a message to be transmitted to Callahan on Topaz IV by "fastest means"—i. e., by the next spaceship headed that way. He said, simply, "Thanks for everything."

He found a good many travelers wandering about the clean, beautifully furnished waiting room of the Agency here. Winstead sank into a softly upholstered armchair, opened his bag, and began to sort out his papers. No sooner did he look up from this task than there appeared before him a pleasantly smiling, gray-haired man. He was about Winstead's height, but chunky and full of bounce.

"My name is John Aubrey," he announced. "I trust I can be of service. Are you stopping here on Bessie?"

"No, I—I'm just passing through," said Winstead. "I assume you are the Agency official here?"

"One of them," Aubrey said. "Ah, your papers? Thank you. We can just step this way into my office if you like."

He threaded his way between chairs, tables, and occasional travelers to one of a row of offices. It was the size of a large closet, but cheerfully decorated. Aubrey gave Winstead a chair and sat himself down behind an extremely modern desk to commit the required formalities upon the traveler's papers. The ultimate destination ticket Winstead had included gave him pause.

"Well, well, well!" he exclaimed. "Achernar X! Really! You must be with the government, I suppose? Or a scientist? As I recall, Achernar is rather blue for human use, except our research outpost there, isn't it?"

"I—er—I am engaged in a little research," said Winstead. "You did very well to remember the place offhand."

"It is a long way out. Interesting. I wonder how I can get you there. Someone seems to have sent you—well, no matter. Just leave it to me. You'll be staying at our hotel, of course? Might as well, since you have paid for the service, eh? I'll have you flown over right away."

An aircar carried Winstead to the roof of a hotel overlooking a considerable metropolis. Having left his bag in his room, he found his way to the hotel department store and ordered another suit. He spent the rest of the afternoon sightseeing and decided that he might just as well have been on Terra. When he sat down to an excellent dinner that evening, he discovered that his appetite, unfortunately, had not recovered from his stay on Topaz IV.

He was awakened before dawn by the soft chime of his bedside screen. A touch of the button brought on the happy features of Aubrey.

Does he never rest? thought Winstead.

He pushed the audio button and answered.

"Good morning, Mr. Winstead," said the Agency man brightly. "Sorry to call so early, but I was extremely lucky to find you a passage toward Achernar."

"Not sure I want to go," Winstead muttered into his pillow.

Aubrey, apparently not hearing him, bubbled merrily on. There would be an aircar on the hotel roof for Winstead in half an hour. Haste was necessary because the ship was leaving from a spaceport fifty miles outside the city. Indeed, Winstead could count himself fortunate to have had the chance so quickly. Aubrey had found it only by checking all the private spacelines. After all, Achernar was a long way off.

Winstead thanked him blearily before switching off. He then dialed the hotel store, but got no more answer than he expected. Giving up thoughts of his new suit, he rose and struggled into his clothes.

Queen Bess had not yet poked her corona above the horizon when the aircar delivered him to a little island spaceport south of the city. A stocky, taciturn shadow met him. They walked silently out to a ship that towered darkly overhead.

"No inside elevator?" asked Winstead, peering at the skeleton framework rising beside the ship.

"Too much load."

They rode a creaking platform up through the chilly breeze until Winstead thought they would go past the nose of the monster. Clutching his bag in one hand and the single railing in the other, he edged across a narrow gangway to an airlock. Inside, he followed the crewman down a short, three-foot-diameter shaft to a square chamber, catching his bag on the ladder no more than a few times.