This Fortress World by James Gunn

didn't understand it, but the others did, and they were laughing at me. I wondered why she had made them laugh at me.
    As I wondered, the answer came. I was the only man in the room who was dressed in black. They thought I was an Agent. Tension—I had sensed it subconsciously—had been tightening every nerve in the room. Laughter had been a release.
    There were spacemen in black and silver, mercenaries in various sparkling, two tones, although Imperial orange and blue predominated; there were a few women in brilliant, skin-tight tunics and short-skirts, but there were no shadow-black Agents.
    Across the room, the girl's arms dropped, urgently, her eyes wide with a mute appeal. She wanted me to leave. She was right, but I couldn't force myself to move. Behind me was the night. I would not go back into it. My face was grim as I met her eyes and slowly, almost imperceptibly, shook my head.
    She shrugged and looked down at one of the men sitting on the floor. She spoke to him and forgot me. As quickly as that, she forgot me.
    There was an empty booth near the back. I walked toward it, and the noises that had drifted to me when I was outside rose around me now, the talk, loud and soft, the clinking glasses, the music. I sat down, and the room receded until it was a long way off, and I wondered if I would have the strength to get up again.
    Reluctantly, a waiter brought me a glass of light wine. I huddled over it. The world revolved around me. It spoke in loud, coarse voices, spinning around my silent, near-mindless eddy at the hub.
    —Young? Hell, yes! The younger the better, I say.
    —garrison duty. Agh! A few drinks once a month and a broken-down—
    —but her old man started cussing, see? And I said, "Look, here, old man, we whipped you. You're nothing, see? I'd just as soon burn you as not, see?" So I slapped him once or twice, and I never heard another word—
    —and I left there with over one thousand chronors in hard money, fifty rings, a half-dozen watches, some of them platinum, and three diamonds, the smallest as big as my little fingernail—
    —now this one was noble—
    —sign on with one who's going places—a leader who hasn't got much but a flame in his eyes—and you've got a chance for promotion, wealth—maybe even a barony—
    —should have been at the loot of Journey's End. God! What a place! Why—
    —Was I sorry to leave Arcadia! And was she sorry to see me leave—
    —there we were, practically in the middle of this sun's corona, and the Captain—
    —class is class, I always say—
    —so I says to her, Baby, for five chronors—
    —three years without touching port. Never again—
    Chairs pushed back, squealing protest. A woman torn from a silver-and-black lap to stand panting and glowing-eyed and a little afraid by the side of scarlet-and-gold. Silver-and-black rising, weaving slightly, making ugly noises and waving his hands menacingly in the air. Scarlet-and-gold moving forward, fists balled, sneering. Arms reaching out behind them, pulling them down into chairs. Silver-and-black finding another woman in his lap, talking to scarlet-and-gold in a gay, friendly, ribald fashion.
    The world turned around me.…It turned against a background of melody, a clear girl-voice in front of singing chords—not a great voice or even a very good one but a voice which was more than both, a friendly voice, a sincere voice. It was a good voice for what it sang; men listened and were moved to tears or laughter or passion. Occasionally, through the chaos of noise and my own dulled senses, I heard a voice come clear…
'I knew a man on Arcadee.
    I knew a few on Brancusee.
    And Lord! they were all men to me
    No matter what men say…'
    —so the Captain, he says to the Navigator, kind of slow and nasty-like, "All right, Mr. Navigator, just where do you think we—"
    —wanted money, see? And I said, Baby—
    —and the Navigator said, "Captain, I'll be hanged if I know where we are." And the Captain