A Great Day for the Irish

								


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Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net

                       A GREAT DAY FOR THE IRISH



                           By A. M. LIGHTNER



                         Watchdogs have to be

                    watched or they keep everything

                     out--including our friends!



           [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from

                Worlds of If Science Fiction, May 1960.

         Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that

         the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]

Bridget Kelly stood at the foot of the rocket lift and watched the
loading operation. The freight had long since been inspected and
stowed, and now it was the passengers' turn. Bridget was glad that for
once she was not responsible. Let others worry and snoop. This time she
was a passenger herself, starward bound. Inspected, passed and okayed,
she could have the pleasure of watching others squirm.
Like that beauty coming aboard with the furs and the orchid. She
wouldn't be allowed to keep the orchid, of course. Bridget grinned as
she saw the flower tossed into a trash can and imagined the words the
beauty was mouthing. The man beside her sported a boutonniere. Yes,
there it went into the can. He was still smiling, probably cracking
wise. Bridget had separated so many travelers from so many items that
she could tell what the passenger was going to say before he said it.
Most people knew that strenuous efforts were being made to keep pests
and epidemics away from Earth. Ever since the beginnings of space
travel, the quarantine of incoming ships at the Moon had been rigidly
observed. But the fact that plagues could also spread from Earth
seldom registered on the public's mind.
Bridget was all too well aware of it. For several years she had
labored to that end in the Quarantine Service. Now that her savings
had accumulated and her abilities as an entomologist were recognized,
she was about to board one of the shining ships herself. There were
raised eyebrows when her destination was known. An entomologist going
to New Eden--a planet where insects were at a minimum. But Bridget only
smiled. She knew what she wanted. She was bound for the frontier, where
men are men and women are scarce.
The speaker blared. The countdown was beginning.
"Fifteen minutes!" rasped the mechanical voice. "Fifteen minutes to
blast-off!"



       *       *       *       *       *
She took a last look at the planet of her birth and squeezed into the
lift. The few remaining passengers pushed in with her. A man in a red
waistcoat was commiserating with the woman beside him.
"Don't let the officials get you down," he said. "We'll have to put up
with them for the journey. But on New Eden, I hear, the conditions are
so good they hardly need any regulations at all."
"It isn't that," sniffed his friend. "It's just that you gave it to me