bought some of the drug from the peddlers who operated almost openly, and he'd cultivated them, but they were only tools.

The higher-ups might have been invisible for all anybody knew about them. Nobody even knew where the drug came from. But wherever it originated, it was swiftly corrupting Mars and Venus, as well as the Jovian system and the asteroid belt.

When small quantities appeared on Earth, the powers-that-be of the System News Service smelled news. Ron Barnard, star reporter who had unveiled many a scandal in gay twenty-third century New York, was sent to investigate. And Ron Barnard stood in Mars' wildest dive, scratching his head and staring after a frightened, pretty girl.

"That's my sister," said a childish voice beside him.

Barnard stared at the big man beside him. The man was a splendid physical specimen, but his face—

It was the face of a mindless idiot.

Barnard felt repelled. The man's features were not idiotic; they should have been those of an intelligent person. But the eyes changed everything. They were blank and somehow—soulless. Barnard shrank automatically away from the apelike creature.

Then he understood what the idiot had said.

"Your sister!" He stared unbelievingly.

The gray haired shambling being gurgled, childlike. "My sister—Gail."

Barnard felt a curious shame in finding a human being in such a state, talking like a baby. But maybe he could learn something. He dug into his pocket, thrust a coin into the idiot's palm.

"What does your sister do? Does she maybe sell little packages of gray powder to people?"

The creature looked naively at him. "Gail don't like the gray powder. She says I must never eat the gray powder. Do you want some? Lots of mans here sells some."

Barnard thought. He had seen that girl before. A hunch began to grow in him.

"What's your name?" he asked.

"George Melvin," the idiot said.

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