one conspiracy?"

"Why not?" countered the other.

Karns said nothing beyond the usual blustering protests that would be expected of him. Then he lapsed into silence as the two took over after ordering their own vessel to proceed.

They did not go to the commercial sky-yard, but to the official one. Other officers met them, and Hank Karns was led straight away to jail. He protested every step of the way, demanding to be taken before the Terrestrial resident commissioner, or to be booked in the usual way. Both those demands were refused, whereupon he asked for a lawyer.

"Don't kid yourself, old man," said one of his guards. "You're in Venus now. Here you are."

Ray-gun levelled, the guard shoved Hank stumblingly forward. He staggered and nearly fell, striking his head against the barred window. Outside he could see the form of a spaceship. But it was not the Swapper. The guard laughed and swaggered out.

There he was. There was no question about that. The barred door slammed behind his departing escort with an air of utter finality.

"Hi-ya, pop!" screamed some hoodlum down the corridor. "Whatcha in for?"

After that nothing happened. Hank Karns looked about him at his cramped cell and settled down to make the best of it. It would be tiresome, locked up alone this way, but in a day or so perhaps the mysterious Mr. Brown would put in his appearance.

The next day came, but no Mr. Brown. However, early in the morning another visitor came in his place. Karns heard footsteps approaching and the jangle of keys. His door was flung open and a tall stranger stepped in. The man was quite old and clad in the blue uniform, faded and patched, of a space skipper. He was obviously a lone trader, but if he was, he was the only one in the universe that Hank Karns did not know. For this man, with his beetling gray eyebrows and hard steely eyes beneath, he had never laid eyes on before.

"Two minutes, no more," warned the guard, and stood back in the corridor where he could both see and hear.

"Howdy Hank," said the newcomer. "Danged if it ain't gitting so that Tom Bagley spends half his time bailing you out or paying fines. Why, I'd hardly landed here but what I heard you'd been slung into the calaboose again, and I says to myself, says I...."

 Prev. P 15/19 next