He watched the ambulance flit off as he waited for the Spaceport Patrol. There was no further need for the protection suit, so he peeled it off and hung it in the control-room locker. Copper was right, he mused. It did itch.
The Port Captain’s men were late as usual—moving gingerly through the radiation area. A noncom gestured for him to enter their carryall. “Port Captain wants to see you,” he said.
“I know,” Kennon replied.
“You should have waited upstairs.”
“I couldn’t. It was a matter of medicine,” Kennon said.
The noncom’s face sobered. “Why didn’t you say so? All you said was that it was an emergency.”
“I’ve been away. I forgot.”
“You shouldn’t have done that. You’re a Betan, aren’t you?”
Kennon nodded.
They drove to the Port Office, where Kennon expected—and got—a bad time from the port officials. He filled out numerous forms, signed affidavits, explained his unauthorized landing, showed his spaceman’s ticket, defended his act of piloting without an up-to-date license, signed more forms, entered a claim for salvage rights to the Egg, and finally when the Legal Division, the Traffic Control Division, the Spaceport Safety Office, Customs, Immigration, and Travelers Aid had finished with him, he was ushered into the presence of the Port Captain.