I

wearing the non-service clothes Danny Pritchard sent along for Slade to wear. The tunic was russet, with puffy sleeves gathered at the wrists. It was big enough for Slade's shoulders and would have held two of him at the waist. The slacks were doe-skin, again ample in the waist and thighs—but so tight when his calf muscles bulged that the tanker had considered slitting them up from the cuffs.
Slade wore the boots he had awakened with at the Port. They fit; and he might soon have need for footwork.
Buckalew had taken his time about answering his passenger's implied question. "Well, I tell you," the Houseman said with a sidelong glance which shifted the truck, "I'm sorry, and you not used to the House and all . . . but it'd be worth my teeth at the best if I got smart about where I pulled in. Especially with the load I'm carrying from your buddies in Six."
"What's in the load?" Slade asked in surprise.
"Nothing, that's what's in the bloody load!" the Houseman snapped. "Cans of process, that's what we've got. Via! I know and everybody at the House knows that they're bringing in crunchers and that they're taking heart fillets out of duopods—all the good stuff, just like always. But what do they send me back with? Process! Compressed protein. Compressed flotsam! One of these days a load of boys from the House is going to come see your buddies, and they're going to wish they'd changed their ways before."
"Well, I don't know," said the tanker without emphasis. "I'd say the crew at Six would be easier folks to talk to than to threaten. True of a lot of people, of course. Been reminding myself of that for going on twenty years."
"You see how it is," said Buckalew. He waved—Slade cringed and the truck rasped—toward the tall outline of the House on the horizon. "I'm in enough trouble, coming back with nothing but turtle cop. If I drop you at Service, they'll be sure I off-loaded anything worth eating there too. You see."
"They will," the tanker repeated. He flexed his fingers, one hand against the other. "Well, I guess I'll see pretty soon."

"Come on, Bucky," crackled the voice through the