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I'm in Marsport without Hilda

It worked itself out, to begin with, like a dreaes work out Maybe right then's when I should have smelled catastrophe

It began with nht and proper routine for the Galactic Service I reached Marsport for the usual three-day layover before the short hop to Earth

Ordinarily, Hilda, God bless her, as sweet a wife as anyfor me and we'd have a nice sedate time of it-a nice little interlude for the two of us The only trouble with that is that Marsport is the rowdiest hellhole in the system, and a nice little interlude isn't exactly what fits in Only, how do I explain that to Hilda, hey?

Well, this tiot sick just two days before I reached Marsport; and the night before landing, I got a spacegra she would stay on Earth with her mother and wouldn't meet me this one time

I gra her mother; and when I landed, there I was:

I was in Marsport without Hilda! That was still nothing, you understand It was the frame of the picture, the bones of the wo inside the frame; the skin and flesh outside the bones

So I called up Flora-Flora of certain rare episodes in the past-and for the purpose I used a video booth Damn the expense, full speed ahead

I was giving myself ten to one odds she'd be out, she'd be busy with her videophone disconnected, she'd be dead, even

But she was in, with her videophone connected and shewas anything but dead

She looked better than ever Age cannot wither nor custom stale, as somebody or other once said, her infinite variety And the robe she wore-or, rather, almost didn't wear-helped a lot

Was she glad to see me? She squealed, 'Max! It's been years'

'I know, Flora, but this is it, if you're available Because guess what! I'ain 'Isn't that nice! Then come on over'

I goggled a bit This was too much 'You mean you are available?' You have to understand that Flora was never available without plenty of notice Well, she was that kind of knockout

She said, 'Oh, I've got soement Max, but I'll take care of that You come on over'

'I'll come,' I said happily

Flora was the kind of girl-Well, I tell you, she had her rooet to free her of Marsport's pseudo-grav field was expensive, of course, but I'll tell you just in passing that it orth it, and she had no trouble paying it off If you've ever held a girl in your arees, you need no explanation If you haven't, explanations will do no good I'm also sorry for you

Talk about floating on clouds

And ravity Flora did I won't talk about myself, you understand, but Flora didn't howl for ements just because she was at loose ends Her ends were never loose

I closed connections, and only the prospect of seeing it all in the flesh-such flesh!-could have e with such alacrity I stepped out of the booth

And at that point, that precise point, that very split instant of tied itself up to me

That first whiff was the bald head of that lousy Rog Crinton of the Mars offices, glea over a headful of pale blue eyes, pale yellow co Crinton, with some Slavic strain in his ancestry, that half the people out on field work thought had a middle name that went sunnuvabich

I didn't bother getting on all fours and beating round because otten off the ship

I said with only normal politeness, 'What the hell do you want and I'ot an appointment'

He said, 'You've got an appointot a little job for you'

I laughed and told him in all necessary anatomical detail where he could put the little job, and offered to get him a mallet to help I said, 'It's ency alert, friend'

Which meant, no vacation, just like that I couldn't believe it I said, 'Nuts, Rog Have a heart I got an eency alert of my own'

'Nothing like this'

'Rog,' I pleaded, 'can't you get someone else? Anyone else?'

'You're the only Class A agent on Mars'

'Send to Earth, then They stack agents like micropile units at Headquarters'

This has got to be done before 11 pot three hours?'

I grabbed my head The boy just didn't know I said 'Let me make a call, will you?'

I stepped back in the booth, glared at him, and said, 'Private!'

Flora shone on the screen again, like a , Max? Don't say soement'

I said, 'Flora, baby, I'll be there I'll be there But so's come up'

She asked the natural question in a hurt tone of voice and I said, 'No Not another girl With you in the sairls Baby! Honey! It's business Just hold on It won't take long'

She said, 'All right,' but she said it kind of like it was just enough not all right so that I got the shivers

I stepped out of the booth and said, 'All right, Rog Sunnuvabich, what kind of mess have you cooked up for me?'

We went into the spaceport bar and got us an insulated booth He said, 'The An tores Giant is co in from Sirius in exactly half an hour, at 8 pm local time'

'Okay'

'Threeothers, and ait for the Space Eater co for Capella soet on the Space Eater and will then be out of our jurisdiction'

'So'

'So between eight and eleven, they will be in a special waiting rooe of each for you so you'll knoho they are and which is which You have between eight and eleven to decide which one is carrying contraband'

'What kind of contraband?'

The worst kind Altered Spaceoline'

'Altered Spaceoline?'

He had thrown me I knehat Spaceoline was If you've been on a space hop you know too And in case you're Earthbound yourself the bare fact is that everyone needs it on the first space trip; almost everybody needs it for the first dozen trips; lots need it every trip Without it, there is vertigo associated with free fall, screa terrors, se; you don't ; it has no adverse side effects Spaceoline is ideal, essential, unsubstitutable When in doubt, take Spaceoline

Rog said, That's right, altered Spaceoline It can be changed chemically, by a simple reaction that can be conducted in anyone's basee and become your baby-blue habit the first tierous alkaloids we know'

'And we just found out about it?'

'No The Service has known about it for years, and we've kept others fro every discovery flat Noever, the discovery has gone too far'

'In ay?'

'One of thesome of the altered Spaceoline on his person Chemists in the Capellan system, which is outside the Federation, will analyze it and set up ways of synthesizingthe source'

'You mean Spaceoline'

'Right And if we suppress Spaceoline, we suppress space travel'

I decided to put er on the point 'Which one of the three has it?'

Rog smiled nastily 'If we kneould we need you? You're to find out which of the three'

'You're calling on me for a lousy frisk job?'

Touch the wrong one at the risk of a haircut down to the larynx Every one of the three is a big man on his own planet One is Edward Harponaster; one is Joaquin Lipsky; and one is Andiamo Ferrucci Well?'

He was right I'd heard of every one of them Chances are you have too Important, very important people, and not one was touchable without proof in advance I said, 'Would one of them touch a dirty deal like-'

There are trillions involved,' said Rog, 'which means any one of the three would And one of theot that far before he was killed-'

'Jack Hawk's dead?'

'Right, and one of those guys arranged the killing Now you find out which You put the finger on the right one before eleven and there's a promotion, a raise in pay, a payback for poor Jack Hawk, and a rescue of the Galaxy You put the finger on the wrong one and there'll be a nasty interstellar situation and you'll be out on your ear and also on every blacklist from here to Antares and back'

I said, 'Suppose I don't finger anybody?'

That would be like fingering the wrong one as far as the Service is concerned'

'I've got to finger soht one, or my head's handed to me?'

'In thin slices You're beginning to understand me, Max'

In a long lifetilier The only co at him was the realization that he was married too, and that he lived with his wife at Marsport all year round And does he deserve that! Maybe I'm hard on him, but he deserves it

I put in a quick call to Flora, as soon as Rog was out of sight

She said, 'Well?' The ht and her voice sounded as thrillingly soft as she looked

I said, 'Baby, honey, it's soot to do it, see? Now you hang on, I'll get it over with if I have to swim the Grand Canal to the icecap in my underwear, see? If I have to claw Phobos out of the sky If I have to cut myself in pieces and mail myself parcel post'

'Gee,' she said, 'if I thought I was going to have to wait'

I winced She just wasn't the type to respond to poetry Actually, she was a simple creature of action

but after all, if I were going to be drifting through low gravity in a sea of jasmine perfume with Flora, poetry response is not the type of qualification I would consider most indispensable

I said urgently, 'Just hold on, Flora I won't be any time at all I'll make it up to you'

I was annoyed, sure, but I wasn't worried as yet Rog hadn'tto tell the guilty man from the others

It was easy I should have called Rog back and told hi in your beer and oxygen in your air It would take o to Flora; a little late,kiss from the Service on each cheek

You see, it's like this Big industrialists don't go space hopping o to soh interstellar conference, as these three were probably going, they took Spaceoline For one thing, they didn't have enough hops under their belt to risk doing without For another, Spaceoline was the expensive way of doing it and industrialists did things the expensive way I know their psychology

Now that would hold for two of them The one who carried contraband, however, couldn't risk Spaceoline-even at the price of risking space sickness Under Spaceoline influence, he could throw the drug away, or give it away, or talk gibberish about it He would have to stay in control of himself

It was as simple as that

The Antares Giant was on tiht in Lipsky first He had thick, ruddy lips, rounded jowls, very dark eyebrows, and hair just beginning to show gray He just looked at

He was under Spaceoline

I said, 'Good evening, sir'

He said, in a dreamy voice 'Surrealismus of Panamy hearts in three-quarter time for a cup of coffeedom of speech'

That was Spaceoline all the way The buttons in the huests the next in free association

Andia and waxed, olive complexion, pock-marked face

He sat down

I said, 'Nice trip?'

He said, Trip the light fantastic lock the clock is Growings on the bird' Lipsky said, 'Bird to the wise guyed book to all places everybody'

I grinned That left Harponaster I had netic coil ready to grip him

An then Harponaster cah near-bald, considerably younger than he seeills

I said, 'Damn!'

Harponaster said, 'Damyankee note speech to his last time I saood you say so'

Ferrucci said, 'Sow the seed the territory under dispute do well to coale' Lipsky said, 'Gay lords hopping pong balls'

I stared from one to the other as the nonsense ran down in shorter and shorter spurts and then silence

I got the picture, all right One of the the Spaceoline would be a giveaway He ed it some other way

One of the Coularly It was a the liberties they could take with the moral code in that way You've heard them

I stared at theot the first prickle at the base of ht one?

It was eight-thirty and there wasrickety upon ht of Flora She wasn't going to wait for me forever For that matter, chances were she wouldn't wait for half an hour

I wondered Could the faker keep up free association if nudged gently onto dangerous territory?

I said, The floor's covered with a nice solid rug' and ran the last tords together to "

Lipsky: 'Drug froh re mi fa sol to be saved'