The Sky Trap Frank Belknap Long LAWTON enjoyed a good fight.
He stood happily trading blows with Slashaway Tommy, his lean-fleshed torso gleaming with sweat. He preferred to work the pugnacity out of himself slowly, to savor it as it ebbed.
“Better luck next time, Slashaway,” he said, and unlimbered a left hook that thudded against his opponent’s jaw with such violence that the big, hairy ape crumpled to the resin and rolled over on his back.
Lawton brushed a lock of rust-colored hair back from his brow and stared down at the limp figure lying on the descending stratoship’s slightly tilted athletic deck.
“Good work, Slashaway,” he said. “You’re primitive and beetle-browed, but you’ve got what it takes.”
Lawton flattered himself that he was the opposite of primitive. High in the sky he had predicted the weather for eight days running, with far more accuracy than he could have put into a punch.
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