Short Fiction · Lone Star Planet (2/11) (2/2)

But the one thing I wanted to remember, as the hangover shots brought me back to normal life, I found was the one thing I couldn’t remember. What was the name of that girl⁠—a big, beautiful blond⁠—who joined the party along with Hoddy’s grass widow from Alderbaran and stayed with it to the end?

Damn, I wished I could remember her name!

When we were fifteen thousand miles off-planet and the lighters from New Austin spaceport were reported on the way, I got into the skintight Levis, the cataclysmic-colored shirt, and the loose vest, tucked my big hat under my arm, and went to the purser’s office for my guns, buckling them on. When I got back to the suite, Hoddy had put on his pistols and was practicing quick draws in front of the mirror. He took one look at my armament and groaned.

“You’re gonna get yourself killed for sure, with that rig, an’ them popguns,” he told me.

“These popguns’ll shoot harder and make bigger holes than that pair of museum-pieces you’re carrying,” I replied.

“An’ them holsters!” Hoddy continued. “Why, it’d take all day to get your guns outa them! You better let me find you a real rig, when we get to New Austin.⁠ ⁠…”

There was a chance, of course, that he knew what I was using and wanted to hide his knowledge. I doubted that.

“Sure, you State Department guys always know everything,” he went on. “Like them microfilm-books you was readin’. I try to tell you what things is really like on New Texas, an’ you let it go in one ear an’ out the other.”

Then he wandered off to say goodbye to the grass widow from Alderbaran, leaving me to make the last-minute check on the luggage. I was hoping I’d be able to see that blond⁠ ⁠… what was her name; Gail something-or-other. Let’s see, she’d been at some Terran university, and she was on her way home to⁠ ⁠… to New Texas! Of course!

I saw her, half an hour later, in the crowd around the airlock when the lighters came alongside, and I tried to push my way toward her. As I did, the airlock opened, the crowd surged toward it, and she was carried along. Then the airlock closed, after she had passed through and before I could get to it. That meant I’d have to wait for the second lighter.

So I made the best of it, and spent the next half-hour watching the disc of the planet grow into a huge ball that filled the lower half of the viewscreen and then lose its curvature, and instead of moving in toward the planet, we were going down toward it.