Coran whistled. "What's your problem?"

"None of your business."

"Have it your own way. My business won't wait either. Now, if you don't mind, I'm in a hurry. I've less than two hours to find a honky-tonk and get myself a bride. I don't suppose you'd know where the nearest dive is. No, you wouldn't."

He turned away toward the elevators, but the girl clutched his arm desperately. "Six thousand.... It's all I have."

Coran stared at her. "I'm sorry for you, but you'd have to kill me to get these away. And I'm hard to kill. I'll make a deal though. I'll sell you half of my double for three thousand. You'd have to marry me, though."

"Marry you!" There was a word of loathing in her tone.

"It's been done. I'm on my way out now to look up a floozy. I'll even marry her, if she's dope enough to want it that way. I don't like the idea any better than you do, but I'd hock grandma's false teeth to get to Venus. Forget I mentioned it. If I'm to be stuck with a dame for four months, it might as well be a flamethrower as an icicle."

He buzzed for the elevator before she called after him. "I—I've changed my mind." She was pale, with a look of suppressed fury about her. "I guess I'd do even that."

Coran laughed wickedly. "Don't flatter yourself. You're just a ticket to Venus to me. Meet me at the marriage bureau in half an hour. We haven't much time, and you'll have to be psychographed. We really should know each other. I'm Steve Coran."

"I'm Gerda Mors. In half an hour."

The purser stopped at a door marked No. 200. He was a young, inadequate-looking man.

"You won't have to carry me over the threshold," Gerda said crisply. She went inside and shut the door. In shocked silence, he re-checked the sheaf of papers in his hand.

"She's shy around strangers," Coran explained. "When do we take-off?"

"In five minutes. We're making these emigrant runs under very crowded conditions. All passengers are expected to remain in their own staterooms most of the time. A certain amount of exercise is permitted, of course, once free flight is attained and the A-orbit corrections made. Until then, we recommend that everyone remain out of the crew's way. The safest place 

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