"Sometimes. At night we go back to Chicago. Where do you stay?"

"In the fog, most of the time." Barnard tried another line. "Where's Gail now?"

"In jail." George Melvin said it without changing his tone or his expression.

Barnard seized his coat front and stared into the dull eyes. "In jail? George, what happened? Who arrested her? Why?"

"A man came. A man with a star on his hat—"

"The Space Police!"

Barnard released the half-wit. He stared happily toward the gray building of the Space Police. This was something—he felt the hunch too strongly to have any doubt. The story was going to break!

The Space Police were relatively new, and it behooved them to be good to the press, for there was still much opposition to their existence. He hesitated a moment, thinking of the lack of enthusiasm with which Commander John Lansfer had received him. But Lansfer would let him in on the story, or there'd be some hot articles in the newspapers of the System News Service.

He pushed another coin into George Melvin's paw. "George, go back to Quong Kee's and wait until I come. Do you understand? I'm going to find out about Gail."

Watching the half-wit disappear, he felt a pang where his conscience should have been. Somehow he didn't like the idea of Gail Melvin as a part of this neoin ring.

"Hell," he growled to himself. "I can't afford to be human. I have a job to do—and the System News Service comes first."

He pushed into a thin cold Martian wind and hurried toward the warmth of the police building.

II

Barnard looked through narrowed eyes at Commander Lansfer of the Space Police, and he knew the man was lying. All his newsman's instinct told him that the dark-haired, sharp-featured police officer knew more than he was telling. He leaned across the desk.

"Commander, I came all the way from Earth to get the inside on this dope ring. Who's behind it? Where does it come from?"

Lansfer shrugged slightly. His face was expressionless, as always. "We are working on the problem," he said.

Barnard made a 

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