CAKEWALK TO GLORYANNA
BY L. J. STECHER, JR.
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
Worlds of Tomorrow June 1963
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
The job was easy. The profit was enormous. The
only trouble was—the cargo had a will of its own!
Captain Hannah climbed painfully down from the Delta Crucis, hobbled across the spaceport to where Beulah and I were waiting to greet him and hit me in the eye. Beulah—that's his elephant, but I have to take care of her for him because Beulah's baby belongs to me and Beulah has to take care of it—kept us apart until we both cooled down a little. Then, although still somewhat dubious about it, she let us go together across the field to the spaceport bar.
I didn't ask Captain Hannah why he had socked me.
Although he has never been a handsome man, he usually has the weathered and austere dignity that comes from plying the remote reaches among the stars. Call it the Look of Eagles. Captain Hannah had lost the Look of Eagles. His eyes were swollen almost shut; every inch of him that showed was a red mass of welts piled on more welts, as though he had tangled with a hive of misanthropic bees. The gold-braided hat of his trade was not clamped in its usual belligerent position slightly over one eye. It was riding high on his head, apparently held up by more of the ubiquitous swellings.