I considered going to school to become a croupier or dealerÄ then moved that possibility to the bottom of the pile. A skilled dealer or stick man or wheel man can work for many years at good wages

but to me it would be a treadmill. A way to stay alive but not a life. Better to join up as a private and buck for field rank.

But there were other possibilities I had never thought about. Consider these:

WANTED: 90-day wife for off-planet vacation.

All expenses, luxury 9 +, guild bonus scale. Phys. range

S/Vv', temperament sanguine 8, amativeness scale 7 or above.

Client holds procreation license Chicago Imperium, will

surrender it to holiday wife if she becomes pregnant or both

will undergo 120-day sterilization, her choice.

See Amelia Trent, Licensed Sex Broker,

#18/20 New Cortez Mezzanine.

URGENTLY NEEDEDÄTwo Time-Space Engineers, any sex,

experienced in n-dimensional design. Must be willing to

risk nonreversible temporal dislocation.

ParticipationÄAmenitiesÄAssurance

Terms to be negotiated

Babcock and Wilcox, Ltd.

Care Wall Street Journal, LV Lbr Mrt

I could try to sign with Babies Unlimited or I could freelance. My conditional sterility would be a selling point, as the thing customers of host mothers are most leery of is the host mother who slips one over on the clientÄgets pregnant on her own just before submitting herself for hosting. Sterility is no handicap as bringing down an ovum is not the purpose; the technologist simply manipulates to change the body chemistry to make the field ripe for implantation. Ovulation is simply a nuisance.

Having babies for other people could be only a stopgapÄbut a possible one; it paid well.

Not a bad deal for someone who wanted a three-months' vacation and enjoyed Russian roulette. To me, pregnancy was no danger and my horny scale rating is higher than sevenÄmuch! But the doxy bonus scale in the Free State is not high enough to make the accumulated pay enough to justify losing chances at more permanent workÄand that faceless client was almost certainly a crashing bore or he wouldn't consider hiring a stranger for his holiday bed.

The above is exactly the sort of job I wanted. The only hitch was that I was in no slightest degree qualified.

The First Plasmite Church ("In the Beginning was Plasma, without form and void") off the Mall had a sign advertising times of services. A smaller notice with movable letters included in it caught my eye:

"The Next Virgin Will Be Sacrificed at 0251 Oct 22"

That looked like a permanent position but again not one for which I was qualified. It fascinated me. While I was gawking, a man came out and changed the sign and I realized that I had missed last night's sacrament and the next altar sacrifice was two weeks away, which left me undismayed. But my curiosity got me, as usual. I asked him: "Do you actually sacrifice virgins?"

He answered, "Not me. I'm just an acolyte. ButÄ Well, no, they don't actually have to be virgins. But they do have to look like virgins." He looked me up and down. "I think you could make it. Want to come in and talk to the priest?"

"Uh, no. Do you mean that he actually sacrifices them?"

He looked at me again. "You're a stranger here, aren't you?"

I admitted it. "Well, it's like this," he went on. "If you were to advertise that you were casting for a snuff film, you could cast every part by noon and not one of `em would ask if they were actually going to be snuffed. It's that kind of a town."

Maybe so. More likely I'm a yokel come to town. Or both.

There were lots of ads for off-planet jobs or concerning off-planet matters. I did not expect to hire out for an off-planet job because I did expect to go off planet as a colonist so lavishly subsidized that I would have free choice of any colony, from Proxima, almost in our laps, to The Realm, so far away that both cargo and people went by n-shipÄexcept that the late word on The Realm was that The First Citizen had closed it to migrants at any price, except certain artists and scientists by individual negotiation. Not that I wanted to go to The Realm, rich as it is reputed to be. Too far! But the Proximates are our close neighbors; from South Island their sun is right overhead, a big bright star. Friendly.

But I read all the ads:

Transuranics Golden Division on Golden around Procyon-B wanted experienced mining engineers to supervise kobolds, fiveyear renewable, bonuses, perks. The ad did not mention that on Golden an unmodified human person seldom lives five years.

HyperSpace Lines was hiring for the run to The Realm via Proxima, Outpost, Fiddler's Green, Forest, Botany Bay, Halcyon, and Midway. Four months round trip horn Stationary Station, one month paid leave Earthside or Luna, and repeat. I skipped over the requirements and pay for ultra-astrogator and warp engineer and supercargo and communicator and medical officer but looked at the other ratings:

Waiter, room steward, maintenance carpenter, electrician, plumber, electronicist, electronicist (computer), plumber, cook, baker, sous chef, pantryman, chef, specialty cook, bartender, croupier/dealer, social director, holographer/photographer, dental assistant, singer, dance instructor, games supervisor, companionsecretary-maid/valet, cruise director's assistant, art instructor, cards instructor, cruise hostess, swimming instructor, hospital nurse, children's nurse, master-at-arms (armed), master-at-arms (unarmed), director/bandmaster, theatrical director, musician (twentythree instruments named but doubling on two or more required), cosmetician, barber, masseur, stores clerk, retail sales clerk, sales manager, excursion escortÄ

Äand that's just a sample. In general, if they do it on the ground, they do it or something like it in the sky. Some of the jobs concerned uniquely with spaceship matters I can't even translateÄwhat in the world (or out of it) is an "over kippsman 2/c"?

One profession not listed is "doxy" despite the fact that HyperSpace Lines is an Equal Opportunity Employer. By word of mouth I learned how very equal this is. If you want to be hired for any of the not so very technical jobs, it helps enormously to be young, handsome/pretty, healthy, horny, bisexual, money-hungry, and open to any reasonable proposition.

The Port Captain himself has two left feet and was purser of the old Newton, up from room steward. In his sky-voyaging days he made certain that his first-class passengers got anything they wantedÄand that they paid well for it. As Port Captain this is still his

purpose. He is said to favor married couples or equivalent over any single if they can work as a team both in and out of bed. I heard a story around the Mall of one gigolo/doxy team who made themselves rich in only four tripsÄdance instructors in the morning, swimming instructors in the afternoon, dancing host and hostess before and after dinner, a singing and comedy act, then private entertainment singly or as a team at nightÄfour voyages and ready to retire... and had to retire because they were fired, as they were no longer very attractive, no longer brimming with vitality; they had maintained this impossible pace on uppers and downers.

I don't think money can tempt me that much. I'll stay awake all night most anytime I'm asked but I do want to catch up on sleep the next day.

I wondered how it was that HyperSpace Lines, with only four passenger liners, was apparently hiring all their many ratings all the time. The line's assistant hiring agent said to me, "You really don't know?"

I told her I did not.

"At each of three of the stops it takes lots and lots of what makes the world go round to buy your way in. Three more are not cheap although some skills are accepted in lieu of contribution. Only one is a bounty planet. So desertion is a major problem. Fiddler's Green is so desirable a place that the first officer of the Dirac jumped ship there a few years back. The company does not have too much trouble with crew recruited here... but suppose your home was Rangoon or Bangkok or Canton and you were working cargo on Halcyon and the pusher took his eyes off you just long enough. What would you do?"