arm away, staggering a little. Marnay caught him and steadied him.

"Quit pushin' me, dammit," the big man said thickly. "Lemme 'lone. Go 'way, go 'way!"

"All right, mister, it's your funeral," Marnay shrugged. But as the other man moved away, threading unsteadily among the tables, Marnay turned and continued to watch him worriedly. And he listened even more worriedly.

The fellow's voice was thick, but it was still loud over the din in the room. He had become increasingly voluble as the potent tsith took effect. Obviously this was his first trip to Mars, and he didn't know the Red Halo was named sardonically: it was the rendezvous for the worst cut-throats of three planets!

Marnay frowned. He hated men who became voluble under liquor, but there was something about this big, blonde guy he liked in spite of it! Something beyond the fact that he was an Earthman and an American. Now Marnay wished for the fellow's own sake that he'd shut up. But it was probably too late. Every outlaw in the place must have known by this time that the blonde Earthman was from the freighter, Vera—and that the Vera was leaving tomorrow on a sneak trip, with ten million dollars in supplies and mining equipment for the Callisto colonies!

One of the richest shipments ever to go out from Mars, and now, due to a few drinks and one bragging tongue it was a secret no longer. Marnay knew this information would soon be spreading through the criminal honeycombs of the Martian capital-city. He also knew if any of Prather's men were here—almost a certainty—the Vera would never get beyond the asteroids, much less to Callisto.

Through the haze of smoke he watched the motley little groups that filled the room. Tall, frail Venusians, pallid and dreamy-eyed and apparently docile, but who wouldn't hesitate to slit a throat on the slightest provocation. Leathery, heavy-lidded Martians, eternally sullen and quarrelsome. Earthmen, with that swaggering superiority and egotism which they'll probably retain to the end of time, making them the most hated men in the system. Marnay wondered how many in this room were Prather's men; probably a few of each race, but who could ever pick 'em out? Marnay had tried. That's what he was here for.

Suddenly he became tense. This was what he had feared. He saw the big Earthman stagger heavily against a table.

A mean looking Martian jumped up and shoved him violently away; the Martian's 

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