"_Oui._" The Martian kid grinned, his mouth full of purple teeth. "I
keep you company on your first night in Hoover City, _n'est-ce-pas_?"
"This isn't my first night here," Ben lied. "I've been around a while."
"You are spacemen?"
Ben threw a fifty-cent credit piece on the table. "Here. Take off, will
you?"
Spiderlike fingers swept down upon the coin. "_Ich danke, senor._ You
know why city is called Hoover City?"
Ben didn't answer.
"They say it is because after women come, they want first thing a
thousand vacuum cleaners for dust. What is vacuum cleaner, _monsieur_?"
Ben raised his hand as if to strike the boy.
"_Ai-yee_, I go. You keep listen to good Martian music."
The toothpick of a body melted into the semi-darkness.
Minutes passed. There were two more whiskeys. A ceaseless parade of
faces broke through the smoky veil that enclosed him--reddish balloon
faces, scaly reptilian faces, white-skinned, slit-eyed faces, and
occasionally a white, rouged, powdered face. But nowhere was there a
face with a red beard.
A sense of hopelessness gripped Ben Curtis. Hoover City was but one of
a dozen cities of Venus. Each had twenty dives such as this.
He needed help.
But his picture must have been 'scoped to Venusian visiscreens. A
reward must have been offered for his capture. Whom could he trust? The
Martian kid, perhaps?
Far down the darkened aisle nearest him, his eyes caught a flash of
white. He tensed.
Like the uniform of a Security Policeman, he thought.
His gaze shifted to another aisle and another hint of whiteness.
And then he saw another and another and another.
Each whiteness became brighter and closer, like shrinking spokes of a
wheel with Ben as their focal point.
_You idiot! The damned Martian kid! You should have known!_
* * * * *
Light showered the room in a dazzling explosion. Ben, half blinded,
realized that a broad circle of unshaded globes in the ceiling had been
turned on.
The light washed away the room's strangeness and its air of brooding
wickedness, revealing drab concrete walls and a debris-strewn floor.
Eyes blinked and squinted. There were swift, frightened movements and
a chorus of angry murmurs. The patrons of the Blast Inn were like
tatter-clad occupants of a house whose walls have been ripped away.
Ben Curtis twisted his lean body erect. His chair tumbled backward,
falling.
The white-clad men charged, neuro-clubs upraised.
A woman screamed. The music ceased. The Martian orchestra slunk with
feline stealth to a rear exit. Only the giant Venusians remained
undisturbed. They stood unmoving, their staring eyes shifting lazily in
Ben's direction.
"Curtis!" one of the policemen yelled. "You're covered! Hold it!"
Ben whirled away from the advancing police, made for the exit into
which the musicians had disappeared.
A hissing sound traveled past his left ear, a sound like compressed air
escaping from a container. A dime-sized section of the concrete wall
ahead of him crumbled.
He stumbled forward. They were using deadly neuro-pistols now, not the
mildly stunning neuro-clubs.
Another hiss passed his cheek. He was about twelve feet from the exit.
_Another second_, his brain screamed. _Just another second--_
Or would the exits be guarded?
He heard the hiss.
It hit directly in the small of his back. There was no pain, just a
slight pricking sensation, like the shallow jab of a needle.
* * * * *
He froze as if yanked to a stop by a noose. His body seemed to be
growing, swelling into balloon proportions. He knew that the tiny
needle had imbedded itself deep in his flesh, knew that the paralyzing
mortocain was spreading like icy fire into every fiber and muscle of
his body.
He staggered like a man of stone moving in slow motion. He'd have
fifteen--maybe twenty--seconds before complete lethargy of mind and
body overpowered him.
In the dark world beyond his fading consciousness, he heard a voice
yell, "Turn on the damn lights!"
Then a pressure and a coldness were on his left hand. He realized that
someone had seized it.