“I didn’t know you knew John Steward,” Harris said. “I wish we came here more often. Does Gordie know him?”
“Probably better than I do,” I said, relaxing. The kids weren’t as bad as I’d thought. “John does a program for the Scout troops every year.”
Harris subsided, newly impressed with his cousin. Elliot had acquired a spring in his step, which indicated that things weren’t too bad for him, either.
“About Ernest,” Joyce began again. I tensed. “He’s in jail,” she said. “And I wondered…”
“I’m sorry,” I said, and started explaining about the wheels and the festival jail.
“I understand,” she said. “But it’s not that jail. It’s a real jail.”
“Ernest?” My mind fogged.
“It’s—I hate to explain—” She looked away. I glanced around, and saw that we were nearly at their bubble. Pointing it out and settling them into it distracted us both. Then she sent the kids to the nearest foodstand for a snack, and went on. “It’s not what it sounds like,” she began. “I met this musician…”
Lights flashed in my mind. “Conway?” I asked. “Of the Jinnits?”
She blushed. “How did you guess?” she asked. I couldn’t have explained, and nodded for her to go on. “Well, anyway, he was sad and lonesome—his wife had just run out on him with another man, he said. And I suspected that Ernest was having an affair.”
“With—?” I had a glimmer, but it seemed wildly improbable.
“I didn’t know, then. Someone younger, blonder, whatever. I thought maybe I could make him jealous, and Conway was so sweet, so… pathetic…” Her lashes drooped, and I felt a rush of sympathy. “Then… we were just relaxing together, there in the sauna, and in rushes this blonde viper!” Joyce’s voice had thinned and hardened; I could imagine it making holes in steel. “She grabbed my arm and threw me out, and screamed the most terrible things at us… threatened to tell Ernest…”
“Did she?”
“Not that I know of. Anyway, I went home, and Conway shipped out that night. And I was glad we were coming here, because I knew the Jinnits would play, and I might see Conway. Not anything serious, but… but he doesn’t think I’m too old…”
“Of course not,” I said gallantly, but worriedly.
“So when we got here, Ernest was—well, frankly Andy, he wasn’t too happy with this—the idea that you’d stuck us out here in the Campground. I tried to tell him you’d probably done it for the children—much better than a crowded hotel, where they wouldn’t have many people their own age. He kept insisting it was only because you hadn’t bothered to find us a place until the last minute.” I tried to look innocent as she glanced at me, then she went on. “We stopped on the way down to have something to eat. That’s when I saw the blonde—Conway’s friend or ex-wife or whatever she is—sitting up at the bar with two of the biggest black eyes I’ve ever seen. Frankly I was glad: she left bruises on my arm when she yanked me around. I wanted to hurry Ernest out of there, but he caught sight of her too… and he left me sitting there, just walked off, to go up to her.”
“Mmm.” Joyce had tears in her eyes when she looked at me.
“That’s right, Andy. She was the tart he was having an affair with. Ernest demanded to know who had blacked her eyes, and a spaceship captain across the room yelled ‘That bastard Conway,’ and Ernest—” She paused, looking down. “You know, Ernest really doesn’t get along with lots of people.”
“Who hit him?” I asked, not surprised at that revelation.
“He told the captain to mind her own business—he really doesn’t like women in authority—and she said it was her business since it happened on her ship. By this time she’d come up to the bar, and she said that the blonde—whatever her name is—”
“Zetta,” I said.
“I never knew,” said Joyce. “Anyway, that she—Zetta—was too enslaved to admit it was a man who hit her, and was trying to blame it on a woman. And Ernest said it was probably the captain, since she looked like the type, and she swung first, but he got in a couple of blows before he fell down. She filed charges, and he filed countercharges, and they’re both in jail.”
“Oh,” was all I could think of to say.
“I’m sorry,” said Joyce. “I guess I knew we shouldn’t come. We always seem to be in your way, somehow, and you’re awfully busy. I know you have important things to do. It’s just…”
“Oh, that’s all right.” It wasn’t all right, but for some reason the tight knot of apprehension that had bothered me since I read Ernest’s note was loosening. Ernest in jail—a real jail, and for brawling in a bar—was something I felt I could handle. Suddenly I wished Peg were there with me. I wanted to see her face when she heard that holier-than-anyone brother Ernest had started a fight in a bar.
“I’m really sorry,” said Joyce again. “I know we’re causing you a lot of trouble, and at the worst time. If it hadn’t been for me wanting to see Conway again…”
“Don’t see why not,” I said, suddenly reckless. Running any festival is a matter of dancing tiptoe on a tightrope with people throwing waterballoons at you. Crazier ideas than the one that came to me then had worked for others. “I can’t get Ernest out immediately,” I said, “not if he’s really assaulted someone. And in the meantime, the Jinnits tell me Conway isn’t playing up to his level because he’s lonesome.”
Her eyes began to sparkle. “I couldn’t… I mean, to seriously—”
“No, not seriously, but you certainly could go to the core dance tonight. After maybe eating dinner with the band. Couldn’t you? It would solve a big problem for me.”
“But the kids—”
I grinned at her. “Harris is crazy about oldtimers, right? I’ll bet he’d be glad to sit in on the first round of the Tall-Tales Competition, which is just three aisles over, where that big teepee is.”
It was not really that simple, of course. It never is. But anyone who can organize the annual festival of a growing community which is going to deserve to be called the hub of the industrial center of the solar system can finagle or squinch or maneuver his way past a few difficulties. With Joyce radiantly at his side (in a silver-lamé suit she’d borrowed from Zetta, after a tearful reconciliation), Conway didn’t even glance at Peg when she and I whirled past the Main Stage, with every curve of hers showing in her new scarlet hotsuit, Jinnits had never sounded better… and they’d already renewed their contract for next year, because, as the lead singer said, “I guess Murray’s not the only friend we’ve got on this colony.” Ernest would be out on bail the next morning; he had been pitifully grateful for my visit and promise of help, once he found that his Company legal insurance wasn’t good in our jurisdiction. And when we finally escorted Joyce back to the bubbletent, in the short end of Nightshift, we found four cheerful and excited youngsters—her three and our Gordie—who had been invited to share snacks with the oldest of the oldtimers, John Steward himself.
If I do say so myself, it was a good start to Wheel Days.
Say Cheese
“They cheated us!” Stavros Vatta glared at his younger brother Gerard. “They cheated us and you didn’t catch them.” He gestured at the open canister. Under a double layer of expensive—very expensive—CraigsHollow Premium Choice cheese shaped into neat round wheels, seven per layer, were irregular, messily wrapped lumps of very cheap and very smelly Gumbone cheese, already demonstrating why no shipper would handle it unless it were flash-frozen at source. That rendered it stringy, but at least it didn’t stink.