The Altar
at Midnight
By C. M. KORNBLUTH
He had quite a rum-blossomon him for a kid, Ithought at first. Butwhen he moved closer to the lightby the cash register to ask thebartender for a match or something,I saw it wasn't that. Notjust the nose. Broken veins on hischeeks, too, and the funny eyes.He must have seen me look, becausehe slid back away from thelight.
The bartender shook my bottleof ale in front of me like a Swissbell-ringer so it foamed inside thegreen glass.
"You ready for another, sir?"he asked.
I shook my head. Down thebar, he tried it on the kid—he wasdrinking scotch and water orsomething like that—and foundout he could push him around.He sold him three scotch andwaters in ten minutes.
When he tried for number four,the kid had his courage up andsaid, "I'll tell you when I'm readyfor another, Jack." But therewasn't any trouble.
It was almost nine and theplace began to fill up. The manager,a real hood type, stationedhimself by the door to screen outthe high-school kids and give thebig hello to conventioneers. Thegirls came hurrying in, too, withtheir little makeup cases and theirfancy hair piled up and theirfrozen faces with the perfectmouths drawn on them. One ofthem stopped to say something tothe manager, some excuse aboutsomething, and he said: "That'saw ri'; get inna dressing room."
A three-piece band behind thedrapes at the back of the stagebegan to make warm-up noisesand there were two bartenderskeeping busy. Mostly it was beer—amidweek crowd. I finished myale and had to wait a couple ofminutes before I could get anotherbottle. The bar filled upfrom the end near the stage becauseall the customers wanteda good, close look at the strippersfor their fifty-cent bottles of beer.But I noticed that nobody satdown next to the kid, or, if anybodydid, he didn't stay long—yougo out for some fun and thebartender pushes you around andnobody wants to sit next to you.I picked up my bottle and glassand went down on the stool tohis left.
He turned to me right awayand said: "What kind of a placeis this, anyway?" The brokenveins were all over his face, littleones, but so many, so close, thatthey made his face look somethinglike marbled rubber. Thefunny look in his eyes was it—thetrick contact lenses. But I triednot to stare and not to lookaway.
"It's okay," I said. "It's a goodshow if you don't mind a lot ofnoise from—"
He stuck a cigarette into hismouth and poked the pack at me."I'm a spacer," he said, interrupting.
I took one of his cigarettes andsaid: "Oh."
He snapped a lighter for thecigarettes and said: "Venus."
I was noticing that his pack ofcigarettes on the bar had somekind of yellow sticker instead ofthe blue tax stamp.
"Ain't that a crock?" he asked."You can't smoke and they giveyou lighters for a souvenir. Butit's a good lighter. On Mars lastweek, they gave us all some cheappen-and-pencil sets."
"You get something every trip,hah?" I took a good, long drinkof ale and he finished his scotchand water.
"Shoot. You call a trip a'shoot'."
One of the girls was workingher way down the bar. She wasgoing to slide onto the emptystool at his right and give himthe business, but she looked athim first and decided not to. Shecurled around me and asked ifI'd buy h