"
"If you can't get good prices, hang onto it and age it. I wish you could
see what the bars on Terra charge for a drink of ten-year-old
Poictesme."
"This isn't Terra and we aren't selling it by the drink. Only place we
can sell brandy is at Storisende spaceport, and we have to take what the
trading-ship captains offer. You've been on a rich planet for the last
five years, Conn. You've forgotten what it's like to live in a
poorhouse. And that's what Poictesme is."
"Things'll be better from now on, Klem," the mayor said, putting one
hand on the old man's shoulder and the other on Conn's. "Our boy's home.
With what he can tell us, we'll be able to solve all our problems. Come
on, let's go up and hear about it."
They entered the wide doorway of the warehouse on the dock-level floor
of the Airport Building and crossed to the lift. About a dozen others
had joined them, all the important men of Litchfield. Inside, Kurt
Fawzi's laborers were floating out cargo for the ship--casks of brandy,
of course, and a lot of boxes and crates painted light blue and marked
with the wreathed globe of the Terran Federation and the gold triangle
of the Third Fleet-Army Force and the eight-pointed red star of Ordnance
Service.
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