The Belt Cities were populated by pioneers who still had not given up the luxuries of civilization. Their one weakness was that they had their cake and were happily eating it, too.
Not that Harry Morgan didn't realize that fact. A Belt man is, above all, a realist, in that he must, of necessity, understand the Laws of the Universe and deal with them. Or die.
Commodore Sir Harry Morgan was well aware of the stir he had created in the lobby of the Grand Central Hotel. Word would leak out, and he knew it. The scene had been created for just that purpose.
"Grasshopper sittin' on a railroad track,
Singin' polly-wolly-doodle-alla-day!
A-pickin' his teeth with a carpet tack,
Singin' polly-wolly-doodle-alla-day!"
He sang with gusto as the elevator lifted him up to the seventy-fourth floor of the Grand Central Hotel. The other passengers in the car did not look at him directly; they cast sidelong glances.
This guy, they seemed to think in unison, is a nut. We will pay no attention to him, since he probably does not really exist. Even if he does, we will pay no attention in the hope that he will go away.
On the seventy-fourth floor, he did go away, heading for his room. He keyed open the door and strolled over to the phone, where a message had already been dropped into the receiver slot. He picked it up and read it.
COMMODORE SIR HARRY MORGAN, RM. 7426, GCH: REQUEST YOU CALL EDWAY TARNHORST, REPRESENTATIVE OF THE PEOPLE OF GREATER LOS ANGELES, SUPREME CONGRESS. PUNCH 33-981-762-044 COLLECT.
"How news travels," Harry Morgan thought to himself. He tapped out the number on the keyboard of the phone and waited for the panel to light up. When it did, it showed a man in his middle fifties with a lean, ascetic face and graying hair, which gave him a look of saintly wisdom.