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“Cheer up,” said St. Simon. “Teaching isn’t such a bad lot. And, after all, you do get paid for it.”

“And at a salary! A Pooh-Bah paid for his services! I a salaried minion! But I do it! It revolts me, but I do it!”

The short, balding man behind the checker’s desk looked up as the two men approached. “Hello, captain,” he said as St. Simon stepped up to the desk.

“How are you, Mr. Murtaugh?” St. Simon said politely. He handed over his log book. “There’s the data on my last ten. I’ll be staying here for a few days, so there’s no need to rush the refill requisition. Any calls for me?”

The checker put the log book in the duplicator. “I’ll see if there are, captain.” He went over to the autofile and punched St. Simon’s serial number.

Very few people write to an anchor man. Since he is free to check in and reload at any of the major Belt Cities, and since, in his search for asteroids, his erratic orbit is likely to take him anywhere, it might be months or years before a written letter caught up with him. On the other hand, a message could be beamed to every city, and he could pick it up wherever he was. It cost money, but it was sure.

“One call,” the checker said. He handed St. Simon a message slip.

It was unimportant. Just a note from a girl on Vesta. He promised himself that he’d make his next break at Vesta, come what may. He stuck the flimsy in his pocket, and waited while the checker went through the routine of recording his log and making out a pay voucher.

There was no small talk between himself and the checker. Mr. Murtaugh had not elected to take the schooling necessary to qualify for other than a small desk job. He had no space experience. Unless and until he did, there would be an invisible, but nonetheless real barrier between himself and any spaceman. It was not that St. Simon looked down on the man, exactly; it was simply that Murtaugh had not proved himself, and, therefore, there was no way of knowing whether he could be trusted or not. And since trust is a positive quality, lack of it can only mean mistrust.

Murtaugh handed Captain St. Simon an envelope. “That’s it, captain. Thank you.”

St. Simon opened the envelope, took out his check–and a blue ticket.

Kerry Brand broke into a guffaw.

* * * * *

When the phone on his desk rang, Georges Alhamid scooped it up and identified himself.

“This is Larry, George,” said the governor’s voice. “How are things so far?”

“So far, so good,” Alhamid said. “For the past week, Mr. Peter Danley has been working his head off, under the tutelage of two of the toughest, smartest anchor men in the business. But you should have seen the looks on their faces when I told them they were going to have an Earthman for a pupil.”

The governor laughed. “I’ll bet! How’s he coming along?”

“He’s learning. How are you doing with your pet?”

“I think I’m softening him, George. I found out what it was that got his goat three years ago.”

“Yeah?”

“Sure. On Ceres, where he went three years ago, he was treated as if he weren’t as good as a Belt man.”

Alhamid frowned. “Someone was disrespectful?”

“No–that is, not exactly. But he was treated as if we didn’t trust his judgment, as though we were a little bit afraid of him.”

“Oh-ho! I see what you mean.”

“Sure. We treated him just as we would anyone who hasn’t proved himself. And that meant we were treating him the same way we treated our own ‘lower classes’, as he thought of them. I had Governor Holger get his Ceres detectives to trace down everything that happened. You can read the transcript if you want. There’s nothing particularly exciting in it, but you can see the pattern if you know what to look for.