But the woman didn't answer. She yanked at controls inside the cabin and the old beat up jet rose with a tired, grumbling roar like the sigh of a very old man contemplating the long long years that have gone.

Ten minutes later she looked down, yanked once more on the controls. She'd almost overshot. The ship shuddered violently fore to aft and then jammed down inside the Administration Port.

She hunched her shoulders inside the plastiskin, let her eyes go up to a sucker sign off in the distance. She read:

CITY OF FRAON, GAMBLER'S PARADISE

And in smaller letters beneath:

COME CLEAN—GO AWAY THE SAME

She curled her lip. Between Fraon and the city of Jao to the south, the planet had quite a bit of "Paradise." Of the two cities, though, Fraon was the larger; Fraon would be the logical one. That's why she'd chose to try it first. That's where he would come.

She left the ship and made her way over to the Guide, a small niche of a place set into the corner of the now darkened Administration building. The Guide was open but it didn't look as though it was doing any business. She went inside.

There weren't any customers at all. The only person in the place was a young, greasy looking man, an attendant, who just now was looking bored and fingering a black pencil line mustache.

The greasy looking man raised his eyes. His finger left off caressing his mustache, and he studied the woman coming toward the desk. H'mm. Nice build. A little on the rough side, like something left out in the atmosphere too long, but all in all not too bad. Beggars can't be choosers. Not on Rain Night they can't. Not way out here on the edge of nothing at eleven in the evening when everybody's gone home, they can't.

He pushed the machine of buttons across the desk toward the woman. "Just in off the deserts?" he asked.

The woman tossed hair out of her eyes. She gave the greasy man a look. She eyed his mustache. She didn't say anything.

The greasy man grinned. Not hard to get, he thought, just a little careful. A little careful till she found out what he had to offer—generally speaking.

"Five more minutes before we close," he said, 

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