Ordinarily. Tonight it looked like a missionary's picnic.
At the bar, Earthies sporting two-week passage beards and Quantrell blasters bucked over grimy rocketroom coveralls, rubbed elbows with cat-whiskered yellow city Martians and their vicious little baboon-faced cousins from the deserts. Woolly blue tree men from Titan drank with squishy Venusians and tentacled Ionians. I saw a couple of Callistans in a corner, braced saw-horse-fashion on their jointless legs and sticklike tails, grinning happily while they fraternized with a pair of ponderous Europans. The Europans, coy as two honeymooning hippos under Joey's spell, blubbered amiably back and rolled in small polite circles on their little three-wheeled carts.
This last was an Earthie, a big, battered homo named Husky Harrigan who tipped the scales at two-fifty Earthweight and looked like a tuskless Mercurian sandhog, bristles and all. I had run into difficulties with him before. He had the disposition of a thwarted ape, wore brass knuckles the way other men wore finger rings, and was the prime reason for the Argonaut's tough reputation.
But tonight Harrigan was as gentle as a dove, circulating through the crowd and shaking hands with anything that had a hand to shake.
I spotted Perry Acree at once. He was sitting at a table with two Earthies and a spiny pink Ganymedan, drinking skohl straight from the pitcher and staring soulfully at nothing in particular. I made a bee-line for his table but brought up short when I heard Husky Harrigan roaring my name.
Force of habit made me set myself for trouble, but under Joey's spell, Harrigan was everybody's friend, even mine. He put out a hairy paw and grinned like a crocodile, whinnying with joy and showing a set of second-rate bridgework where somebody had kicked out a handful of teeth.
"Hey, kids, it's Blaster Bill Bailey!" he bellowed. "C'mon and have fun, Willie. First drink on the house!"
I nearly clipped him for that "Willie" crack before I thought. Not that I had scruples about clouting an oaf like Harrigan when he was in no position to strike back. I just couldn't afford the delay. Captain Giles' patrolies might be along any minute. And there was always Shanig.
So I pushed past Harrigan and yanked Perry to his feet.