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“If it’s a vacation for your mind that you want, Princess,” I agreed, “those boys are your meat.”

Just then the Gorilla Man got a leg split on Barefoot Charley and began to braid his toes.

“How stimulating,” breathed Aliana. “What is proper for the onlooker to remark in such a situation?”

“A satisfactory outcry, Princess,” I explained, “is, ‘Break it off!’“

“Break it off!” encouraged Aliana.

I had to wind it up, finally, before the wrestlers reduced themselves to blubber, thereby forcing the Interplanetary Amusement Corp. to go out and lasso itself another herd.

The girls went giggling up the side of the pit. At the top, Aliana waved at me. The others blew kisses, not caring much where they landed, as long as the receiver had muscles.

Next morning, a young man came into the pit. He announced that, upon Princes Aliana’s orders, we were to have the freedom of Eros, so that contact with the planetoid culture could win us from our uncouth ways.

He was too young to be wholly gentled by the flowers and the council of elders. So the Choker showed him a wristlock. And when the Choker tossed him on his ear in the erydnium ore, he said words that were not beautiful. Maybe there’s something to the people of this asteroid.