He said, “You didn’t see anything.”

He was right at that, for, come to think of it, if he was at the unloading desk, he must have been spinning ever since because I went past that desk like Halley’s Comet skimming the Solar Corona.

I said, “All right. What do you want?”

“I’ve got a little job for you.”

I laughed. “It’s my month off, friend.”

He said, “Red emergency alert, friend.”

Which meant, no vacation, just like that. I couldn’t believe it. I said, “Nuts, Rog. Have a heart. I got an emergency alert of my own.”

“Nothing like this.”

“Rog,” I yelled, “can’t you get someone else? Anyone else?”

“You’re the only Class A agent on Mars.”

“Send to Earth, then. They stack agents like micro-pile units at Headquarters.”

“This has got to be done before 11p.m. What’s the matter? You haven’t got three hours?”

I grabbed my head. The boy just didn’t know. I said, “Let me make a call, will you?”

I stepped back into the booth, glared at him, and said, “Private!”

Flora shone on the screen again, like a mirage on an asteroid. She said, “Something wrong, Max? Don’t say something’s wrong. I canceled my other engagement.”

I said, “Flora, baby, I’ll be there. I’ll be there. But something’s come up.”

She asked the natural question in a hurt tone of voice and I said, “No. Not another girl. With you in the same town they don’t make any other girls. Females, maybe. Not girls. Baby! Honey!” (I had a wild impulse but hugging ’vision screen is no pastime for a grown man.) “It’s business. Just hold on. It won’t take long.”

She said, “All right,” but she said it kind of like it was just enough not all right so that I got the shivers.

I stepped out of the booth and said, “All right, Rog, what kind of mess have you cooked up for me?”

We went into the spaceport bar and got us an insulated booth. He said, “The Antares Giant is coming in from Sirius in exactly half an hour; at 8p.m. local time.”