Colt was slowly, methodically, wiping his black hands on the white toweling. The first miner stepped from the sink to stand a few inches away from him. 164
"Least we never had t' deal with bloody Fiji Islanders before."
Colt said nothing. He surrendered the towel. The miner grinned at him with crooked teeth.
"Or Yank niggers," he added.
Colt grinned back. His right fist traveled six inches and buried itself in the man's solar plexus. The miner gave a silent gasp and collapsed, legs folding as he sank to the tiled floor. The other miner stared but said nothing.
Kinsman opened the door and Colt followed him out into the noisy, crowded pub. They saw Durban and Leonov already standing at the end of the bar, near the door that led to the corridor.
"See what I mean?" Colt said as they elbowed their way through the press of bodies. "Gotta fight for respect, every inch of the way."
Out in the corridor Leonov said, "I was about to call your embassy to send a searching party for you."
"We got into a small discussion with a couple of the friendly natives," Colt replied.
"Say, if you youngsters will slow down a little," Durban pleaded, "I'll show you where my room is."
"And the liquor!" Leonov beamed, immediately slowing his pace to walk beside the elderly Durban.
They labored up the rising slope of the corridor. It had originally been a tunnel hewn out of solid rock. Only the floor had been smoothed and covered with spongy plastic tiles. The walls and ceiling were still bare grayish-brown unfinished rock. Fluorescent lights hung every ten meters, connected by drooping wires.
The others were busily chatting among themselves about the new hospital project. Kinsman stayed silent, thinking, Could I talk Murdock into it? Would they let me fly again? I'd have to work it out so that I was assigned to the hospital project permanently. They'd never let me get away with that. They could reassign me whenever . . .
"HEY, YOU THERE! THE YANKS!"
Turning, Kinsman saw a dozen or so miners advancing up the tunnel corridor toward them. In the lead were the two from the washroom. They all looked drunk. And violently angry.
"That's the black barstard that beat me up!" the miner yelled. "Him an' his friend there."
Colt moved to stand beside Kinsman. And suddenly Leonov was on his other side.
The miners halted a few feet in front of them. They wanted to fight. They were spoiling for blood. Kinsman stood rooted there, his mind blazing with the memory of the moment when he had felt bloodlust. He was sweating again, panting with exertion, reaching for the cosmonaut's fragile airhose . . .
Not again, he told himself, trying to control his trembling so that the others could not see it. Not again!
"What is this?" Leonov demanded. "Why are we ac- costed by a mob?"
"Back off, Russkie," said one of the miners. "This is none of your fight."
"These are my friends," Leonov said. "What concerns them concerns me."
"He beat me up," said the miner Colt had hit.
"An' him." His companion pointed at Kinsman. "He helped th' black bugger."
"Beat you up?" Leonov asked mildly. "Where are your scars? Where is the blood? I see no bruises. Are you certain you did not merely faint?"
