At last he chugged in and parked his grimy little tub beside shiny yachts and towering spaceliners and spacebuses. The canned air of the dome was fresh to his lungs, compared to the reek of his cabin. He dug a tip out of his frayed jeans for the parking attendant, not quite daring to snub him. He winced at the sneer over the small coin.
But no more sneers like that, soon. And plenty more money, with what he had in his bag. He smiled and mumbled as he walked away, swinging the leather bag at his side, bulging with something angular.
He filed his way among others toward the turnstiles leading to the main exhibit area. Tourists, vacationers, families with kids, school groups, newsmen, galactic trotters, earnest scholars. You could find all types here, from every walk of life and from any distant planet, drawn like a magnet to this "must" for all travelers. It was the sight to see around the Milky Way.
Certainly nothing could beat its appeal as the birthplace of mankind. Nothing, that is, except the gay and fabulous Carnival of Castor, whose attendance record could never be topped.
He tried to rush through the turnstile but was halted by the green-clad guard.
"I'm in a hurry, mister," he mumbled in his wispy voice, from an oxygen-burned throat. He began opening his bag. "Look what I found—"
The guard heard not a word. "We keep a register of all visitors to Mother Earth. Name? Home World? Occupation?"
It was odd how even the guard's routine voice lowered a tone on the words "Mother Earth."
"Lem Starglitter Blake," said the little old man in unkempt jeans and patched boots.
The guard's lip twitched slightly. Lem Blake wished he had left out the middle name. Why had parents of that generation taken to such frothy names? Red-faced, Blake went on with a rush. "Born on Antares IV. Prospector for ore strikes. But listen, I made the biggest strike of all. Not ore but—"