DESTROYER #47: DYING SPACE

Warren Murphy

For Susan D.,

who masterminded

THE GREAT POLISH TOW-AWAY

SCAM, and for the

House of Sinanju,

P.O. Box 1454

Secaucus, N. J. 07094

CHAPTER ONE

It was, welllll, awful, just awful, to have to work for Dr. Frances Payton-Holmes.

"I mean, welllll, I don't have to tell you, but the woman is a bitch, an absolute bitch. An octopus. She's always grabbing at me, and if she's not drunk—absolutely smashed—she's trying to get absolutely drunk. And if I try to stop her, she calls me a 'faggot fascist.' I don't care if she does have two Nobel prizes. If they gave out Nobels for drinking or being a disgusting sex maniac, the woman would have a closet full of them, an absolute closet full."

Ralph Dickey confided this to the man with the pleasant blue eyes, the open-throated shirt, and the two gold balls hanging from a chain around his neck.

The man understood. Really understood. "It must be awful," he said. "Still, you're a wonderful

symbol for all of us. A gay astrophysicist. How wonderful."

Dickey nodded. "If only I didn't have to work with that moray eel. I mean, truly, if she grabs me just one more time, I'm going to bite her breasts off."

"It must be terrible," the blue-eyed man said.

"The pits. The absolute pits. Yes, I know they hired me to be a nursemaid for this vampire because, God, they know she isn't my type. But really, I didn't think it would be like this. And who can I tell about it? Do you think anybody here knows astrophysics from anal sex?"

The man with the blue eyes understood. Really understood. Ralph Dickey could see that by the compassion in his absolutely wonderful, smashing blue eyes. It had been so long since Ralph had found someone to talk to—really talk to—somebody who understood.

And so Ralph Dickey talked, he really talked.