Burk Winters got his bearings finally when Phobos rose, and he could
guess where they were heading.
They had slipped quietly out of Kahora, he and the slender young
Martian who had joined him unobtrusively in the Tri-Planet bar. A flier
waited for them on a private field. Kor Hal waited also. They took off,
with a fourth man, who looked to be one of the big barbarians from the
northern hills of Kesh. Kor Hal took the controls.
Winters was sure now that they were bound for the Low Canals. The
ancient waterways and the ancient wicked towns--Jekkara, Valkis,
Barrakesh--outside the laws of the scattered City-States. Thieves'
market, slave market, vice market of a world. Earthmen were warned to
keep away from them.
Miles reeled behind them. The utter desolation of the landscape below
got on Winters' nerves. The silence in the flier became unendurable.
There was something menacing about it. Kor Hal and the big Keshi and
the slim young man seemed to be nursing some common inner thought that
gave them a peculiarly vicious pleasure. Its shadow showed on their
faces.