Supposing you keep the ring while I'm gone—to appraise it, so to speak. All I want to know is who to call for when I get back. If I get back."

The man pocketed the ring.

"Where will the call come from?"

"I dunno. Space, mebbe. Jail, mebbe."

"My radio call is care assistant dockmaster, Venusberg sky-yard. Mention berth twenty-three somehow. As to the jail angle, I do not as a general thing do business with people in jail. In that event, I might send you a lawyer, in consideration of this ring. Tell Rashab, the night turn-key—you'll know him by the double scar on his chin—that you want to see Mr. Brown. I can't guarantee he'll go, but if he does, bear in mind he's a very cagy fellow and that Venusberg jail is studded with dictaphones and scanners. If what you have in mind smacks at all of illegality, it's likely he'll walk out on you."

"Yep," snapped Hank Karns, beginning to shut the clasps on his slicker, "I'll remember. Only I don't think it'll be a lawyer I'll need. If the joint is lousy with spy-machines, what I'll want is an old friend—a man of my type."

The man, whatever his name was, for he had still not given it, laughed outright for the first time. He slapped the Lone Trader on the back.

"Men of your type, you old humbug, are extinct as the horse."

Hank Karns looked up to laugh back at him, but he was gone. In his place stood the turbanned Venutian, still doing washing motions with his hands.

"Milord no like vickvare? Milord go now?"

"My Lord, yes. I go now."

Karns jammed on his sou'wester, took a deep breath, and pushed open the door. A half hour later he was making ready for the take-off for Mercury. It was a shot in the dark, but it was a chance he had to take.

"To hell with that," thought Hank Karns. Then briskly to the boy he had brought with him this trip as a general utility man, "Hey, Billy, look alive! Bear a hand with getting them there rakes stowed!"

"So that's Mercury," exclaimed Billy Hatch, four days later, as he stared goggle-eyed into the visiplate. This was his first interplanetary trip.

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