"Ordinance 419: Aliens ride the lowest deck."

I went through a manhole to the lowest deck, the second one, and lashed myself down. "How did that many emigrants crowd in here?" I quavered.

Ypsilanti said, "Ordinance 481: Passengers shall not talk to pilots."

At a signal from the Ap-GG-12C, Ypsilanti unclinched and backed the Joe Nordo III, reducing orbital velocity until the astraplane was a bright speck. He unstrapped, floated down to my couch, and said, "Papers." I took the GG Travel Book from my chest pocket. The pilot flipped the pages and sneered, "A hunter! Hunt what?"

"Man-eaters. The Jury asked Galactic Government to destroy the Hog. GG sent me. Can't this wait until you ground this thing?"

Ypsilanti exclaimed, "No alien may hunt on Maggie! Shall wait here."

"The 12C won't return for 264 hours!" I yelled. "GG sent me after the Hog."

Ypsilanti laughed. "No aircraft, bombs, men. Slimy thing, one alien cannot kill the Hog. You smell like your owner, Galactic Government. You are not fit to walk on Maggie."

He resumed the controls.

II: FOURDAY MORNING

Although I had previously been spacesick, airsick, carsick, seasick, and sledsick, the descent to Planet Maggie was the first time I believed that Doreen, Laurinda, and Celestine would never again see me alive. How Ypsilanti, occasionally glancing at the few antiquated instruments, found Joetropolis, even in the blundering hours he took, remained mysterious. At last, I saw a clutter of buildings surrounded by a wall. The buildings expanded with dizzy speed, until the shuttle hovered less than one hundred meters above the ground. I gulped weakly at three figures pushing a long metal tube with wheels into a shed constructed in an angle of the wall.

The shuttle bounced to a tail-first stop. Ypsilanti dropped a door, unreeled a chain ladder, and climbed out.

"Didn't you forget me?" I gasped. I scrambled to the first deck and almost pitched from the ship. Coarse grass with red undertones covered the field except for patches blackened by exhausts. At one border was a crude shed and a wrecked jetcopter. Cultivated areas, interspersed with patches of brush, separated the spaceport and the walls of Joetropolis. Ypsilanti ran wildly down a rutted lane 

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