“Well—I’m glad to know I’m still myself,” Whitey said, with a twinkle in his eye. “And a poet I am—but ‘distinguished’ I most emphatically am not!”

“Don’t let him bother you,” Lona assured Sam. “You couldn’t have known it was an insult.”

“But what’re you doing, playing in a backwater bar on a boondock planet?”

“Looking for a clean breath of air.” Whitey’s mouth tightened a little. “The bars on Terra, now, they’re so damn polite you can’t get away with anything but poetry, and that takes all the fun out of it. Also, they don’t really listen—they just want you for background while they try to make time with each other. And say a word about politics, and wham! you’re out the door! They’ve gone effete, they’ve gone gloomy, they’ve gone hopeless, and the finest songs in the world won’t cheer ‘em! Things get better as you go away from Sol—but even here, though there’s some life, they’ve lost the sense of joy and wonder. They want to just sit back behind thick walls and taste fat meat, and they don’t want to hear about hunting dragons.”

“It’s true enough,” Lona agreed, “but you’re not so young any more, Grandfather.”

“That’s so.” Whitey nodded. “That’s why I need to seek for life and freshness.”

“But I am fresh,” Lona pointed out, “and fully alive, and no doubt of it! Just give me a try at being decadent, Grandfather—just give me a little try!”

Whitey sighed, and started to answer, but a huge slab of lard interrupted him, six feet four in height and three feet wide, four feet at the waist, with little, squinting, piggy eyes and an outhrust jaw. “Whatsa matter, singer? Don’t like progress?”

Whitey’s eyes kindled. “Progress? Just because you get more goods doesn’t mean your soul’s better!”

“So, who are you, my father confessor?” The thickened thug grabbed Whitey’s shirtfront and yanked him out of his chair. “Disgusting little bastard! First talking politics, and now religion! Why, I oughta paste you up on the wall.”

“Go ahead,” Whitey caroled, “try!”

The thug stared at him for a moment; then his eyes narrowed, and he wound up for a pitch with a snarl.

Whitey chopped down on his elbow, hard.

The beefy one dropped him with a howl, and two more slabs of meat waded in, reaching for Whitey. Someone yanked Dar out of his chair and flipped him around with a fist to his jaw. He slammed back against the tabletop and sat up, blinking, the roar of a full-scale brawl coming faintly through the ringing in his ears. Most of the patrons were squealing and clearing back against the walls, looking for an exit. A knot of thugs kept trying to form around Whitey, but Father Marco kept roaring in, yanking them out of the way by their collars and bumping them away with his back when they tried to swing back in. The ones who did get in kept popping back as Whitey caught them with undercuts.

Sam and Lona fought back-to-back, with clips to the chin, and kicks to the shin. So far, they’d yielded a lot of hoppers.

Then Dar saw the glint of steel swinging up at Sam’s belly.

He shouted and leaped forward, lurching in between Sam and her attacker. The blade slid along his side, opening the skin; he bleated in pain and anger, and pivoted to face the slice artist.

He was tall and fat, with a gloating grin. “You’ll do just as well.” The knife snaked out at his liver.

Dar swung to the side, grabbing the man’s wrist, cradling the elbow on top of his own, and snapping down. The thug yelled, high and hoarsely; his hand opened, and the knife fell out. Then a grenade exploded on the back of Dar’s neck.

He lifted his head, blinking blearily, and got a great view of feet kicking and lunging all around him. Through the singing in his ears, he heard the hoot of police horns. About time! Then it occurred to him that the tangling feet all around him might think he was part of the floor. He stumbled to his feet, and looked up into a breast-patch that said “Police.” He looked on up to a grinning face underneath a helmet, and noticed an electroclub swinging down at him. He spun away, to find a stun-gun level with his chest, with another police-patch behind it. He yelled and leaped to the side just as the club came crashing down and the stun-gun fired. The one cop was shocked, the other was stunned, and a third caught Dar around the middle. Dar slammed a fist down—right on a helmet. The cop dropped him and leveled a stun-gun. Then the cop dropped, period, and Father Marco grabbed Dar’s arm and yanked him over the scrambling uniform. “Follow me! Fast!” He turned away, and Dar stumbled after him. He bumped into Sam, coming up on his right, and caromed off Whitey on his left. Father Marco yanked open a door, and Lona darted through ahead of them. “Follow her!” the priest snapped.

Well, it went along with Dar’s natural inclinations; he just wished he hadn’t had so much company. He clattered down a set of narrow steps, following Lona’s slim form, and came out in a cellar surrounded by shelves of kegs and racks of bottles. The door slammed behind him, and the noise of the fight diminished to a far-off rumble.

“Quick! It won’t take them but a few minutes to think of the cellar!” Father Marco brushed past them, fumbled at a bolthead in the paneled wall, and swung open a hidden door. Lona darted through, and Dar followed.

Father Marco slammed the door behind Whitey, and Dar found himself suddenly in total darkness. Something soft and curved brushed against him. Lona sprang to his mind’s eye, and he wished she hadn’t brushed away so quickly.

“Dar?” Sam whispered, right next to him, and he fairly jumped. “Yeah, right here,” he whispered back through a whirl of emotions. She’d sounded shy and unsure of herself—feminine. It roused every protective reflex he had—and a full flood of hormones behind them. And the touch of her …

“Where are we?” she whispered.

“I don’t know,” he answered. “Why are we whispering?”

Then a spot of light glared. They turned to see Father Marco’s face, illuminated from below by a tiny glow-globe in the handle of his miniature screwdriver. “The reflex is correct," he said in a very low tone. “Keep your voices down; I don’t think the police know about this bolthole, but they might search the tavern basement, and we don’t want them to get curious.”

“Perish the thought!” Whitey agreed. “Where are we, Father? In a, you should pardon the phrase, priest-hole?”

“No, the persecutions on this planet have never been religiously oriented.” Father Marco grinned. “We’re in the basement of the establishment next door.”

“Which one—Leong Chakov’s Foot Laundry?”

“No, the other one.”

“Oh, Madame Tessie’s Tenderloin Chop House.” Whitey raised his eyebrows, nodding. “Pretty good, Father. Even I didn’t know there was any, ah, connection, between the two establishments.”

The priest nodded. “Only a few select patrons know.”

“You’re one of them?”

“Well—let’s just say it’s surprising what you pick up in moments of confidence.” Father Marco turned away, groping along the wall.

“Oh.” Whitey fell in beside him. “You picked it up in the confessional.”

“No, because of it. They had something of an emergency here last month, calling for the Last Rites and all possible discretion.” There was a loud clunk, and the light bobbed. Father Marco hissed something under his breath. Dar wondered why “blue” should be sacred.

“I think I’ve found the stairs.” Father Marco’s voice was strained. “Slowly and quietly, now.” The light began to bob upward. “The net result is, the ladies here have come to trust me. I think they’ll be discreet about our passage through their quarters.” His light shone on a richly-grained door. “Quietly, now,” he murmured, and turned the knob.

Laughter and raucous music assaulted their ears. They stepped out into the middle of a party for the usual assortment of portly patrons and what had to be the only slender inhabitants of Falstaff. The svelte shapeliness was real, too, obviously—since they were wearing as little as possible.