Page:Amazing Stories v35n11 (1961-11).djvu/10
A rumor was current that a number of hotel and restaurant corporations were banding together to found a Moon resort, but so far nothing had come of it.
The seven aluminum crates spent the night in the Poe warehouse, and in the morning were turned over to Glenn Blair, whose charge they would be for the next thirty-three days, until they reached the Quartermaster Base.
Glenn Blair was a big man, big-boned and fully-fleshed, with a short-cropped head of light hair. Thirty-four years of age, he had been for the last seven years one of the two Chief Cargomasters for General Transits, Ltd., the franchised operator of the Earth-Moon transportation system.
He came into the warehouse now with Cy Braddock, the Poe Cargo Chief, and the two of them compared the stacked crates half-filling the warehouse with the manifest flimsies attached to Braddock's, checking off each item as they found it. When they came to the seven crates from Los Angeles, Blair said, "Cargo for QB. Let's see, what's the specification?" He read the line on the manifest, and grinned. "I forgot it was time for another shipment. Six months already." He patted the nearest of the seven crates. "The boys at QB will be happy to see you fellas," he said.
Braddock looked over his shoulder and read the specification. "What's so important about that stuff? I thought that was low priority."
"Check your regs, Cy. These fellas are priority number one. If they don't get to QB, there'll be hell to pay. Within a month, QB would be more dangerous than a cannibal village."
Braddock shook his head. "You people have a funny set of values," he said. "The more I know about you, the happier I am to stay right here. Come on, let's finish the checkout and get loading. Takeoff is scheduled for eleven-seventeen."
They finished the first checking of the cargo, and went on out of the shed and across the sunbaked tarmac toward the lighter. The Tangiers Poe was a great concrete oval, ringed by warehouse sheds and repair huts and administration buildings. All of Earth's space shipping was conducted here, close to the Mediterranean coast of North Africa, where perfect flight conditions were rarely marred by clouds or rain or cold. Where flight plans include three variables—a lighter moving from a moving Earth to a moving Space Station—no one can afford delays caused by bad weather.
In the shed, the cargo handlers