“Oh, it’s a simple enough chore.” He produced an electric screwdriver from one cluttered side pocket. “In the nature of a scavenger hunt.” Shoulders slightly hunched, he approached a flowering shrub. “Control box is hidden under this fragrant bit of foliage. The flowers, and a snappy shade of purple they are indeed, bloom the whole year round. Thing also repels all major insects. My idea.”
“The flowers smell somewhat like old boots.” Smith had joined him near the high garden wall.
“Do you think so? Well, I was trying for something offbeat, not being fond of sweet cloying scents myself.”
“What am I going to be hunting for, Doc?”
Dropping to his knees, Winner began poking around at the roots of the plant. “People, my boy, you’ll be rounding up people. In fact, your old school chums. Former residents of Horizon House,” he said. “Ah, here’s the dang control box, under this glob of super-efficient synthetic fertilizer I inven-”
“Are these people missing or-”
“Missing, or lost. Five of ’em.” Winner pried the lid off the small gunmetal box that sat on the loamy soil. “Assumption is that most of ’em are still on Zegundo, but scattered to the winds.”
“Who wants them?”
“Our client.”
“Who is?”
“Well, no wonder this was on the fritz, no wonder. This unappealing blue bug has snuck inside my box and committed suicide in the midst of my ingenious and colorful circuitry. Shoo.” With thumb and forefinger Doc Winner lifted the tiny blue corpse free of the box. “A Trinidad-based company called Triplan, Ltd. is financing your mission. Even as we speak, which Whistler may’ve mentioned, we’re merrily scouring the planets in search of a crackajack crew for you.”
Walking back to his chair, Smith sat. “Would your contact at Triplan be a guy named Benton Arloff?”
Winner shut the box, nudged it into its former position, and grunted to his feet. “Arloff’s the lad who married Jennifer Westerland a couple years back, I believe,” he said. “Yes, he’s our client, Jared. Do you object to working for him and his firm?”
After a few silent seconds Smith answered, “Nope. But why’s Arloff so anxious to find these missing Horizon Kids?”
“A sentimental gesture,” said Doc Winner. “What he, along with his dear wife and her sweet greyhaired mother, has in mind is a reunion of all you tots. Years have passed, you’re all full grown, time to get together once again to wax tearful about old times.”
Smith, slouched in his chair, watched him for a while, a thin grin on his tanned face. “You really believe, Doc, that that’s their only motive?”
“Not a bit,” he admitted. “You ought to have fun finding out what they’re really up to.”
A long drop of rain came falling down through the force screen to splash on his broad, flat nose.
CHAPTER 4
Smith turned his back on the vast enormity of space, left the view window and crossed the spaceliner saloon to one of the several empty tables.
At the small floating table next to his sat a large greenish lizardman, slightly slumped and sniffing into a polkadot plyochief. After wiping at his weepy eyes, he gazed over at Smith. “You have a kindly, understanding face, sir,” he said in a croaky voice.
Smith brought up a hand and touched his face. “I do?”
The five empty mulled skullpop mugs on the lizard’s tabletop hopped when he released a heartfelt sigh. “I judge you to be the sort of man upon whom I can unburden myself.”
“That’s an error in judgment, because-”
“Permit me to introduce myself.” He was poking and probing his scaly hands into the pockets of his two-piece checkered travelsuit. “I think I must’ve blown my nose on the last business card I had. At any rate, I am Norman Vincent Bagdad.”
“Mr. Bagdad, I truly don’t want to hear your-”
“I am a practicing polygamist.”
“That’s of no-”
“I have four wives.” He held up a quartet of green fingers. “Four. And where are they now?”
“Fooling around?”
The lizardman gave a sad shake of his head. “Would that they were,” he said. “No, they’re in our luxurious cabin, rehearsing.”
“Rehearsing what?” Smith noticed that the servobot was three tables off.
“Their act. My wives are the Sophisticates.” He studied Smith’s face for a sign of recognition.
“Never heard of them. What do they do?”
Bagdad laughed hollowly. “By George, sir, this is refreshing,” he said. “I’m glad we began this pleasant discourse, because it gives me a fresh perspective on my-”
“It’s really not a discourse, Bagdad. I’d prefer to sit in solitude and contemp-”
“The Sophisticates, sir, happen to be the hottest singing group in the Hellquad System of planets,” the lizard explained. “They’re en route now to the Trinidads for a series of SRO concerts. Their last musivid album just went lead.”
“That’s good?”
“On the Hellquads, where there’s very little metal, it’s akin to going platinum.”
“Oh, so?”
The big lizardman said, “Try to imagine how you’d feel, sir, if every single one of your wives started straying from your hearth and home in order to pursue a show business career.” He leaned closer. “You’ve really never seen their hit single
“Okay, what’ll she be, cobber?” The tall, wide copperplated servobot had rolled over to Smith’s table. He stood grinning, silver teeth sparkling in his ball of a head. “Name’s Think-A-Drink.” Holding up his right hand, he revealed that all five fingers were spigots. “You name it, I’ll pour it, buddy.”
Smith said, “Sparkling water.”
Think-A-Drink’s metallic eyelids fluttered; his round coppery head did a complete turn. “Do these old earflaps deceive me? A big strapping lad like you asking for…ugh…a pansy drink like bubble water?”
Smith grinned thinly. “Sparkling water.”
The big robot whapped his broad metal chest. “That’s no challenge, bucko,” he said. “I mean to say, I can mix thousands of drinks and potations, the favorite concoctions of the four corners of the blinking universe, do you see. From an Earth Martini to a Venusian Sidney K. Brainslammer. I can whip up a Pink Snerg, a Spacewalloper’s Lament, a-”
“Sparkling water,” said Smith. “No ice.”
Think-A-Drink bestowed a coppery sneer upon him. “Coming up, Percy.” Opening a panel in his side, he extracted a chilled plazglass. Then, the sneer still resting on his metallic lips, he pointed his little finger at the glass. A thin stream of club soda gushed out. “One sparkling water.”
“Thanks.”
Think-A-Drink rattled to the table on the other side of Smith. “What’ll she be, cobber?” he asked of the small, greyhaired man who sat with his back to Smith.
“As I was saying,” resumed Norman Vincent Bagdad. “I’ve always been a man who dotes on routine. When you have four wives, why then you can schedule your romantic life in such a-”
“Cheers.” Smith lifted his glass, took a sip. Frowning suddenly, he turned to watch the robot pouring the drink for the man at the next table.
“Something wrong, sir?” inquired the lizardman. Smith sniffed the air. “Damn,” he said, getting quickly up and free of his chair.
He lunged, swung at the plazglass in the greyhaired man’s hand and knocked it from his grasp.
The glass went spinning, splashing sticky green liquid on both of them. It hit the tabletop, bounced twice, and
