The place looked like a hurricane had struck it. But I managed to get pants, tunic, boots and cap assembled and on. Maybe he wouldn't notice the lack of a rank locket.

I heard the taxi coming. I went into my bedroom. The driver rushed in and thrust a bottle at me: Haige and Haige. Counterfeit Scotch. Made by Arabs. They can't spell.

"This is bad Scotch," I said.

"It's a bad situation," he said.

It would have to do. I got him out of there with a fistful of lira.

I went tearing down the tunnel from my secret room to the hangar.

They hadn't dollied the Blixo into position yet. I waited.

Finally, they got all two hundred and fifty skinny, battered feet of her off to the side of the landing pad and plunked a wobbly, far-too-tall landing ladder up to her airlock. They got another one. It didn't fit either. The Blixo spacers put their own landing gangway out. I got aboard.

Captain Bolz was in his cabin getting into a sloppy-looking civilian suit, ready to have a night on the town. He was buttoning a ragged shirt across his hairy chest. I handed him the Scotch. He let go of the shirt. He chomped his teeth down on the cap and tore it off. He had a long, long drink. He shuddered and went a trifle popeyed.

"Gods!" he spluttered. "Gods, but that's good." He took another swallow. He said, "Well, Gris, how are you?"

I reached into my pocket and got the key to the storeroom where I had locked in my gold.

"Your passengers arrived in great shape. Somebody named Gunsalmo Silva was in deepsleep so he wasn't heard from. Prahd Bittlestiffender, he just stayed in his cabin the whole way, studying like fury. That little (bleepard)—what's his name, Too-Too?—I had to put him in irons: it wasn't him, it was the crew, they kept trying to get at him to sleep with. So, it's all in order. So, if you'll just stamp a few papers, they're yours and so's the cargo."

I promptly got out my identoplate and began to stamp. Shortly, I noticed my wrist was getting tired so I looked at what I was stamping. The last half of the pack was blank gate passes so he could land contraband on Voltar. I stamped them.

He grinned. "We understand each other," he said. "Now if you'll let my mates do the unloading, I'm on my way. Have some Scotch. No? Then here I go and the Gods help Turkey." He was gone.

He must have shouted at his spacers as he left for here was a mate to help me. We opened the locker. And there it was! Nine beautiful cases. Eighteen fifty-troy-pound bars of gold! Allowing for difference of gravity-Earth being only about five-sixths as massive—this was only seven hundred and fifty pounds of gold. At twelve troy ounces to the pound that was nine thousand ounces. Gold at the moment was selling at seven hundred dollars an ounce. So I was looking at six million, three hundred thousand dollars worth of gold! Shows you that crime pays after all.

I grabbed a couple of hangar helpers and soon the gold was trundling up my tunnel to my secret room. I went in, threw a blanket over the viewer and then let the helpers pack it in a corner. It didn't take up as much space as you'd think. They, of course, didn't know what it was. The cases were all marked as medical and radioactive.

I was about to shut the door on them and gloat when a messenger came up.

"They want to unload the rest of the cargo! Where does it go?"

I closed my room and went back down the tunnel. They were discharging boxes and boxes and boxes of Zanco material.

Oh, Hells! The hospital! I had forgotten to check if the hospital was complete!

I found a phone and got the contractor. "Of course it's complete!" he said. "I've been trying to get in touch with you for days."

Aha! So I was rich there, too! I got my mind off it. "Where's the keys?"

"Faht Bey has them."

Better and better. I sent a messenger for Faht Bey.

"Trucks," I said. "I need trucks! All this goes to the new hospital!"

"All that?"

I looked again. They were still unloading! They had a mountain-sized pile already and they were still unloading! This was not correct.

I grabbed an invoice sheet out of the hands of a mate. It turned out to be three invoice sheets. One from the goods used at the Widow Tayl's, one from my original purchase and then a third!

My Gods! There was no end to what crooked things superiors will do. Lombar had quadrupled the Zanco order to make another million and a half credits in graft for himself! There were enough cellological supplies here to take care of an army. Two armies! And they had quadrupled all the extra odd bits I had ordered blind as well. There was no telling what was in this growing pile. It must have strained the tonnage capacity of the Blixo!

Then it suddenly struck me. The dirty crooks. They hadn't given me my extra thirty-thousand-credit personal rake-off! I was about to rush off and write them an angry letter but Faht Bey said, "You mean all this goes to the hospital?"

"Yes, yes. Overpaste the labels. Get your hangar crews on it."

"But you'll mess up all the markings," he said.

Oh, Hells. Details, details.

I said to a mate, "Where's that Prahd Bittlestiffender?"

The name was unknown to him but I described him and the mate went up and let him out of his cabin. Tall and spindly, he came gawkily down the gangway, burdened with recorders and baggage.

"You're in charge of the hospital! These labels can't be seen in public. Change all the labels and get this stuff into trucks."

"Hello, Officer Gris," he said. "I can speak Turkish. Listen. I'm speaking Turkish now. Does my pay start now?"

I started to rush off again to write my angry letter.

A mate stopped me. "Where do we put this one?"

They were carrying a stretcher. Somebody in deepsleep. The vicious face of Gunsalmo Silva, no better in repose. "A cell. Any cell. Don't wake him up. I'll take care of him later."

I tried to rush off again. Two spacers were leading somebody out. He was in chains, wrapped up in cloth with a lock on it. He could barely walk. He had a sack over his head.

The mate asked, "What do we do with him?" He pulled the sack off his head. It was Twolah, Too-Too, from my office. The second he saw me, he started to cry.

"Put him in a cell," I said. "They'll show you where the detention cells are. Incommunicado, completely."

I tried to rush off again. A spacer said, "He's got about two hundred pounds of papers in his cabin. What do we do with those?"

"Put them in my office. And don't produce anybody else out of that ship. I'm busy!"

Finally I got away.

I went and wrote the nastiest burning letter I could possibly write! To Zanco. They owed me thirty thousand credits and were trying to gyp me out of it! Not only that, I told them they had denied me the opportunity to buy gold with it! Villains!

And only then did I feel better. The Blixo had arrived. I foolishly thought my troubles were over. They were just beginning!

My gold had arrived so I was sleeping peacefully in the dawn.

Karagoz was shaking my shoulder violently.

"Sultan Bey!" he was saying. "Come quick. Maybe riot!"

I got out of bed, got on some pants and boots and a turtleneck sweater. I went tearing out after Karagoz.

Faht Bey was in a car by the gate. He was holding the door open. It was barely light enough to see his face but what I saw was ashen.

"The hospital!" he said and the driver raced toward it.

"They've been gathering since before dawn. They heard the hospital would be opened today."

"Who?"

"The mothers."

"Why?"

"Because of the sign."

I said, "That doesn't sound like much trouble to me."

"No?" he said. "If we lose the support of mothers in this district our supply of birth certificates will dry up! So be careful how you handle them."