Space Lawyer by Mike Jurist Page B

headlong before its slithering stop. The car hadn't come to a halt before the cabby had flung to the ground, snatched at a single lightweight bag with one hand and swung at the door with the other. But his passenger, a girl with wind-blown locks and hasty traveling costume, had already sprung lightly out.
    "Yell for them to hold it," she cried impatiently. "Don't worry about me."
    The crowd growled, resentful of the narrow escape. "Who the hell does she think she is?" squeaked a burly roustabout. "Almost running us down like we were—"
    "Hold the ship!" bellowed the cabby. "Miss Kenton's coming on board."
    The ground crew had the gangplank swinging wide. The foreman jumped at the name as if he had been blasted. He bellowed in turn. The long steel slant jerked, moved back into place. The growls of the crowd gave way to straining of necks, excited comments. The roustabout stopped in midflight, gulped and retreated hastily into the protective anonymity of his fellows.
    But Sally was too used to gapings and respectful murmurs to pay any attention. She was running with lithe swiftness toward the ship; the cabby puffing behind her.
    "We didn't know," apologized the foreman.
    She favored him with a quick smile. "Neither did I," she told him and vanished into the reopened port.
    The foreman was dazzled. The girl had gone, but the smile remained with him, to be treasured and brought out again and again for inspection. He even foolishly boasted of it to his stout, work-roughened wife that night while swallowing a midnight meal. And regretted it for days thereafter. For his wife had a jealous heart and a blistering tongue; and she brooked no rivals.
     
    The harried and obsequious purser was having a rough time of it.
    "If we had only known you were taking passage," lie wailed, "I would without question have reserved Suite A for you, Miss Kenton. But you see—"
    Sally stamped a trim, determined foot. She pretended indignation. "I don't see. Why, pray, may I not have Suite A?"
    "It's already occupied. It was reserved only this morning. By a Mr. John Carter."
    "And who the devil is this Mr. Carter that he rates the only decent suite on board this ship?"
    The purser thought unhappily of the really luxurious quarters he had shown this imperious young lady and which she had turned down. He didn't realize that under her indignant-seeming exterior she was enjoying herself hugely. Unknown to old Simeon, she had returned to his private office while he was packing, and found the telautotyped plate of her father's reservation under the name of Carter. It took her ten seconds then to make up her mind to board the same ship to Ceres; it took her rather more time to throw a sufficiency of clothes together in a bag.
    "I don't know who he is," confessed the purser, "but he seems a most irascible old man. Almost blasted me out of the room when I stopped in very courteously to ask him if he required anything."
    Sally smiled at this unflattering description of her father; hastily shifted the smile to a frozen stare.
    "Then get him out. Give him another room—five other rooms, for all I care. I want Suite A."
    The purser was desolate. "I'd be glad to do anything in my power; but you haven't seen this man. He'd bite my head off if I asked him anything like that. And, after all, the Space Code says specifically—"
    "Bother the Space Code! If you're so frightened of this fellow , I'll speak to him myself. Take me to him."
    The automatic elevator dropped them to Deck 3; the moving catwalk sped them toward Suite A. The purser surreptitiously mopped his brow. These rich dames, who thought they owned the Universe!
    His discreet buzz was answered by a blast from the annunciator.
    "Come in!"
    The annunciator distorted the voice; but it couldn't mask the impatient rasp to it. The purser shut his eyes and muttered a hasty prayer. There'd be sparks flying when these two met. Hewished himself anywhere else but at this particular spot.
    The door whirred open; and