escape or turn over the documents to anyone else. We'll have an ISP squadron following six hours behind the Aphrodite. If you need help, get a signal to them—by helioflash, if you can. I suggest you find the man first, and through him, locate the woman. From there on, you know what to do...."

"It's a dirty job. Even with frosting, it's simple butchery—no trial, no evidence. Now I know why the Martians consider an ISP man just a hired thug."

"That's all he is. You have your orders and, whatever your private opinions may be, I'm sure you'll agree that lives are unimportant when we're playing for such stakes."

"Lives never are when politicians start dealing from the bottom of the deck," Coran snarled bitterly.

The official shrugged. "I wouldn't know about that. I'm just a yes-man. You can discuss it with Paul Jomian—your politician friend—when you see him. He'll be on the Aphrodite."

"Have you figured out how I'm to get on the Aphrodite? If she's an emigrant ship, they'll take only married couples. The altruistic Company wants settlers to colonize Venus and build up their plague-spot plantations for them."

"That's your problem. Marry someone if you have to, or hire a fake wife. It's been done. Anything, just so you don't give away your official position. Now get going. You've less than three hours till take-off time."

Coran bent over the desk and signed his resignation with an elaborate flourish, put an inked thumbprint beside the name, then stalked to the door clothespinning his nose between thumb and forefinger. "That's time enough to blow this stink off me," he said carelessly, wiping the inky thumb on his uniform jacket.

The official laughed. "You're right. It does stink."

Steve Coran was conscious of the girl merely as an obstacle between him and the ticket window. She was young, expensively dressed and too well-groomed, with blue-white hair, a haughty manner, and an icy stare in her violet eyes.

"I was here first," she said coldly.

Coran bowed mockingly. "I don't like you either. Besides, I never hit a lady in public. I hope this won't lead to one of those shipboard romances."

The beehive activity of the ticket office slackened as take-off time drew near. Coran studied her back as she stood ahead of him in the line 

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