The light, filtering through Venus' eternal cloud blanket, was a soft
gray, not intense enough to cast shadows. Gavin Murdock noted the
phenomena with a frown as he walked along the Street of Sorrow.
In the center of the block, he paused suddenly, lit a cigarette. His
eyes, darting across the lighter's flame, searched the crooked twilit
street behind him. He was just in time to see a figure flatten itself
in a doorway.
Gavin's lips tightened. Ever since leaving the Commissioner's he had
been conscious of being followed. There had been a man on the corner
below his window when he packed his luggage and sent it off to the
_Nova_. The same man had been loitering near the corner as he set off
for the Temple of Joy to meet the officers.
He certainly didn't intend to tip his hand by communicating with the
T.I.S. Commandant Samuels would know that he had accomplished the
first step of that intricate plan, hatched in the head offices of the
Terrestial Intelligence Service, when they saw his name on the _Nova's_
articles.
He allowed his glance to travel about the street. He was in the Old
Port district. Once it had been the heart of the city, but, the big
space lines having built a new field on the bogs of Antram just north
of Venusport, the crumbling rocket blast pits of Old Port were no
longer used except by slavers, smugglers and a few tramp freighters.
He turned abruptly on his heel and resumed his course toward the Temple
of Joy. Let them trail him; they'd learn nothing for their pains.
From the Street of Sorrows, he emerged into Venner Square. The statue
of August Venner, the first Terrestial to bridge the void and set foot
on Venus, rose green with mold in the center of the plaza.
It began to drizzle.
Gavin glanced at his watch. In a few minutes it would be dark. Already
the fungus, lichens and mosses creeping up the face of the buildings
were radiating a greenish phosphorescent glow. He quickened his pace
across the square. As he entered Mercury Alley, he glanced back.
The figure was furtively skirting the statue.
The alley ahead was deserted. It was a blind alley and at the head of
it was The Temple of Joy where the officers of the _Nova_ would be
beginning their night's carousal.
A frown made two vertical furrows between Gavin's sandy brows. Then a
movement at the other end of Mercury Alley caught his attention. Two
men were bearing down on him. They came ahead in the open, but with
caution.
A shiver of apprehension coursed up Gavin's spine. He spun around.
The shadower behind him was no longer furtive. He too was closing in
warily. Both exits of the alley were closed. Except for a single bar,
the buildings on either hand were dark and silent. Trap!
The bar should have a rear exit. Gavin wheeled suddenly and plunged
through the door. A barmaid industriously polishing the plastic bar
glanced up as Gavin slammed the door. There was one customer, a Terran,
seated at a corner table. He smiled at Gavin. "Won't you have a seat,
Mr. Murdock?"
Gavin halted in mid-stride to regard the man in utter astonishment.
He was a nondescript-looking fellow, middle-aged, with a slight black
mustache.
"Won't you sit down, Mr. Murdock?" he repeated genially. "I was
beginning to fear you'd never arrive."
The girl crossed silently to the door and bolted it.
Gavin's bewilderment gave way rapidly to caution. His pale blue eyes
narrowed; his face hardened. He had been herded into the bar, he
realized, like a horse into a corral.
"Sit down," urged the middle-aged man for the third time. "What'll you
have?"
* * * * *
Gavin reached a decision. He sat down with his back to the wall so that
he could keep both the door and the barmaid under observation and said,
"Bourbon."
"Fetch the gentleman bourbon, Meg," said the middle-aged man in a
pleasant voice.
The girl brought a bottle of Terran whiskey and a glass, placing them
on the table before Gavin. She was a buxom blonde with hard, unsmiling
blue eyes and hard, painted features. Her violet shorts fit too tight
and she was wearing the sketchiest kind of halter around her full
breasts.
Gavin poured himself a drink and waited.
"You're wondering, no doubt," began the middle-aged man, "how we knew
who you were and the route you'd take." He smiled briefly. "We have
our ways of knowing, Mr. Murdock. Let me assure you that, before we
decided to approach you, we made a complete examination of your record.
For instance, you were chief engineer of the _Europa_. That was vital.
We had to have a man with a technical knowledge of space drives."
Gavin allowed consternation to register on his face, but thought,
_A good bluff--if I had been chief engineer of the Europa!_ The
middle-aged man, he realized, was only parroting the misinformation he
had given Trev, the Martian. Obviously, he had learned about Gavin from
either Trev or that girl, Nadia Petrovna. Captain Cabot wouldn't be apt
to double-cross himself and this had all the earmarks of treachery.