12

IT WAS YEARS SINCE POWELL had last visited Spaceland. He sat in the police launch that had picked him off the luxury ship “Holiday Queen,” and as the launch dropped, Powell stared through the port at Spaceland glittering below like a patchwork quilt worked in silver and gold. He smiled as he always did at the identical image that came to him each time he saw the playground in space. It was a vision of a shipload of explorers from a far galaxy, strange creatures, solemn and studious, who stumbled on Spaceland and researched it. He always tried to imagine how they’d report it and always failed.

“It’s a job for Dishonest Abe,” he muttered.

Spaceland had started several generations back with a flat plate of asteroid rock half a mile diameter. A mad health cultist had raised a transparent hemisphere of Air-Gel on the plate, installed an atmosphere generator, and started a colony. From that, Spaceland had grown into an irregular table in space, extending hundreds of miles. Each new entrepreneur had simply tacked another mile or so onto the shelf, raised his own transparent hemisphere, and gone into business. By the time engineers got around to advising Spaceland that the spherical form was more efficient and economical, it was too late to change. That table just went on proliferating.

As the launch swung around, the sun caught Spaceland at an angle, and Powell could see the hundreds of hemispheres shimmering against the blue-black of space like a mass of soap bubbles on a checkered table. The original health colony was now in the center and still in business. The others were hotels, amusement parks, health resorts, nursing homes, and even a cemetery. On the Jupiter side of the table was the giant fifty-mile hemisphere that covered the Spaceland Nature Reservation which guaranteed more natural history and more weather per square mile than any natural planet.

“Let’s have the story,” Powell said.

The police sergeant gulped. “We followed instructions,” he said. “Rough Tail on Hassop. Slickie following him. The Rough got taken out by Reich’s girl…”

“It was a girl, eh?”

“Yeah. Cute little trick named Duffy Wyg&.”

“Damnation!” Powell jerked bolt upright. The sergeant stared at him. “Why I questioned that girl myself. I never —” He caught himself. “Seems like I did some lousing myself. Shows you. When you meet a pretty girl…” He shook his head.

“Well, like I say,” the sergeant continued, “she takes out the Rough, and just when the Slickie moves in, Reich jets into Spaceland with a commotion.”

“Like?”

“Private yacht. Has a crash in space and limps in hollerin’ emergency. One killed. Three injured, including Reich. Front of the yacht stove in. Derelict or meteor stray. They take Reich to the hospital where we figure he’s planned for a little. When we turn around, Reich’s gone. Hassop too. I grab a peeper interpreter and go looking in four languages. No dice.”

“Hassop’s luggage?”

“Gone likewise.”

“Damnation! We’ve got to pinch Hassop and that luggage. They’re our Motive. Hassop is Monarch’s Code Chief. We need him for that last message Reich sent to D’Courtney and the reply…”