and repressed a desire to pinch her and find out if she were real. The weasel-faced clerk was tired and his tone of long-suffering patience had worn to a thread of annoyance.

"I've told you before, miss. I can't sell single tickets—the company rules do not permit any but married couples aboard an emigrant transport. We feel that unattached women are trouble makers in a frontier society."

The girl made an arrogant gesture. "It's important. I must get to Venus. I don't care what it costs."

"Don't tell me. See the manager. I don't make the rules. Third office on the left. But you'd better hurry. I've only one double passage left."

Coran tapped the girl on her shoulder. She glared at him. "Take a tip from me, babe. See the boss. If he's a man, you'll get the tickets."

As she left the line, he pushed to the window. "I'll take those two tickets, bud."

"Do you have your marriage certificate?"

Coran reached through the window, snagged a coat lapel and had the man dragged half through the window in a flash. "Now I'll talk, punk, and you listen. Because I don't have a ring in my nose, don't get the idea I'm not married. Do I get those tickets, or do you give up mirrors for the next six weeks?"

The clerk looked at the gnarled fist under his nose and gave a wild nod of his head. "You get them."

The steel fingers relaxed and the clerk slid back inside his cage. "I'll report this," he stormed, shaking himself like a wet animal. "You'd better have your papers when you try to get past the purser." He handed out the tickets.

The girl followed Coran from the office. "I'll give you a thousand vikdals for those tickets."

Coran grinned savagely. "Not even if you said please."

"Please, and two thousand."

"Stop it—you're getting near my price. Besides, they wouldn't do you any good. You need a husband to go with 'em. Take the express rocket next month. It's a shorter orbit and you'll only lose two weeks."

"You take it then. My business won't wait. Three thousand."

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