* * * * *
Kapper tried to straighten up. He hadn't shaved. The lean hard lines
of his face had gone slack and his eyes were bloodshot. He was covered
with mud, and his mouth twitched like a sick old man's.
He said thickly, "I found it. I said I'd do it, and I did. I found it
and brought it out."
The cigarette stub fell out of his mouth. He didn't notice it. "Help
me," he said simply. "I'm scared." His mouth drooled.
"I got it hidden. They want to find out, but I won't tell 'em. It's
got to go back. Back where I found it. I tried to take it, but they
wouldn't let me, and I was afraid they'd find it...."
He reached suddenly and grabbed the edge of the table. "I don't know
how they found out about it, but they did. I've got to get it back.
I've got to...."
Bucky looked at me. Kapper was blue around the mouth. I was scared,
suddenly. I said, "Get what back where?"
Bucky got up. "I'll get a doctor," he said. "Stick with him." Kapper
grabbed his wrist. Kapper's nails were blue and the cords in his hands
stood out like guy wires.
"Don't leave me. Got to tell you--where it is. Got to take it back.
Promise you'll take it back." He gasped and struggled over his
breathing.
"Sure," said Bucky. "Sure, well take it back. What is it?"
Kapper's face was horrible. I felt sick, listening to him fight for
air. I wanted to go for a doctor anyway, but somehow I knew it was no
use. Kapper whispered,
"_Cansin_. Male. Only one. You don't know...! Take him back."
"Where is it, Sam?"
I reached across Bucky suddenly and jerked the curtain back. Beamish
was standing there. Beamish, bent over, with his ear cocked. Kapper
made a harsh strangling noise and fell across the table.
Beamish never changed expression. He didn't move while Bucky felt
Kapper's pulse. Bucky didn't need to say anything. We knew.
"Heart?" said Beamish finally.
"Yeah," said Bucky. He looked as bad as I felt. "Poor Sam."
I looked at the cigarette stub smoldering on the table. I looked at
Beamish with his round dead baby face. I climbed over Shannon and
pushed Beamish suddenly down into his lap.
"Keep this guy here till I get back," I said.
Shannon stared at me. Beamish started to get indignant. "Shut up," I
told him. "We got a contract." I yanked the curtains shut and walked
over to the bar.
I began to notice something, then. There were quite a lot of men in the
place. At first glance they looked okay--a hard-faced, muscular bunch
of miners in dirty shirts and high boots.
Then I looked at their hands. They were dirty enough. But they never
did any work in a mine, on Venus or anywhere else.
The place was awfully quiet, for that kind of a place. The bartender
was a big pot-bellied swamp-edger with pale eyes and thick white hair
coiled up on top of his bullet head. He was not happy.
I leaned on the bar. "_Lhak_," I said. He poured it, sullenly, out of a
green bottle. I reached for it, casually.
"That guy we brought in," I said. "He sure has a skinful. Passed out
cold. What's he been spiking his drinks with?"
"_Selak_," said a voice in my ear. "As if you didn't know."
I turned. The man who had given Kapper the cigarette was standing
behind me. And I remembered him, then.
* * * * *
Circus people get around a lot, and the Law supplies us with Wanted
sheets. I remembered this guy from the last batch they handed us on
Mars. Melak Thompson was his name, and he had a reputation.
He had a face you wouldn't forget. Dark and kind of handsome, with the
Dry-lander blood showing in the heavy bones and the tilted green eyes.
His mouth was smiling and brutal. He nodded at the booth.
"Let's take a walk," he said.
We took a walk. The men sitting at the dirty tables were still silent,
and still not miners. I began to sweat.
The booth was a little crowded with us all in there. I sat jammed up
against Sam Kapper's body. Bucky Shannon's grey-green eyes were sleepy,
and there was a vein beating on his forehead.