Aliens Alien Harvest - By Robert Sheckley Page 0,20

"Can I help you, mister?"

Stan shook his head. "I'm not interested today, thank you."

She glared at him. "You think I'm selling sex? Forget it, stupid. I can see you got a lady with you. And besides, you don't have enough to buy me."

"What are you offering, then?" Stan said.

"Advice. Guidance."

Stan couldn't help laughing. "Thanks, but we can do without it."

"Can you really? You people from around here?"

"No, as a matter of fact."

"That's pretty clear. You want to walk out of here alive? You'd better buy a pass."

Stan looked around. There seemed to be nothing much happening on the street. It all looked safe enough. Yet something about her tone of voice chilled him, and he said, "Just out of curiosity, what happens if we don't take a pass?"

She shrugged. "What usually happens to people who stray onto other people's turf?"

"But I'm standing in a public street!"

"It's turf all the same. You're in the territory of the Red Kings. I can sell you a pass that'll keep you out of trouble, or you can take your chances."

Julie had been standing by, listening, letting Stan handle it, but she was getting impatient. "For heaven's sake, Stan, give her something and let's get on with it!"

"I guess I'll take two passes," Stan said. "How much are they?"

Her price of ten dollars didn't seem too bad. Stan paid with a twenty and waited for change.

"For the other ten I'll sell you some advice," the woman said.

Stan hesitated, then decided not to argue. "Okay. What's your advice?"

"When you go into the soup kitchen," she said, "don't forget your pail." And then she turned and walked away.

Stan looked at the pass in his hand. It was a playing card, the five of diamonds. Turning it over, he saw a fine looping scrawl in red Magic Marker. He couldn't read it, but it looked just like graffiti.

"Hey, kin I help?" a voice asked.

It was a vagrant in a shapeless graycloth hat who had spoken to them. He looked fat and stupid and evil.

Julie said to him, "Buzz off, buster."

The man looked for an instant as though he was prepared to take umbrage at the remark. Then, warned perhaps by a sixth sense that told him when he was outmatched, he mumbled something and walked on.

"I should be doing the protecting," Stan said.

"Don't get all bent out of shape over it," Julie said. "I can take care of bums and wise guys, but I don't know how to build robots. It all evens out in the end."

"Yeah, I guess it does," Stan said. "Here we are."

They walked up the crumbling steps of a rotting tenement. An odor of roach repellent fought with the smell of crushed roaches. There was not much to choose between them. Dim yellow lightbulbs burned overhead as they climbed to the third floor.

Stan found the right door and knocked. No answer. He knocked again, louder.

Julie said, "Maybe we should have phoned."

"No telephone." Stan hammered on the door. "I know he's in there. There's a light on under the door. And I can hear the TV."

"Maybe he's shy," Julie said. "I think we can fix that." With one well placed kick, she shattered the lock. The door swung inward.

Within, there was a dismal looking apartment that might have been pretty nice along around the time Rome was founded. It was a hideous place of ancient wallpaper and mildew, and the sound of a toilet running.

Smell of frying kelp patties from other apartments overlay the basic odors. There was an overflowing garbage pail, with two cardboard cartons of garbage beside it.

For furniture, there was an old wooden kitchen table. Sitting at it in a straight backed chair was a strongly made, sad faced, middle aged man with iron gray hair.

This man looked up as they came in. He seemed startled by what he saw, yet uncaring, as if it didn't matter what the world threw at him next. There was a small black and white TV on the table, and he turned it off.

"Hello, Captain Hoban," Stan said.

Hoban took his time about answering. He seemed to be reorienting himself in the real world, after a long trip to some unimaginable place, perhaps to the time of his trouble in the asteroids.

At last he said, "It is you, isn't it? Why, hello, Stan."

"Hi," Stan said. "I want you to meet my friend Julie."

Hoban nodded, then looked around. He seemed aware for the first time of the apartment's appearance.

"Please, sit down, miss. You, too, Stan. I'll get you