drop it. There isn't a creeping, crawling, oozing thing on all Mars to compare with him. I know. Who would know better than me?"

The croupier still didn't say anything. But his eyes said it for him; they were asking a question as big as space itself.

"The guy's my husband," said the woman. She stopped. She studied the worry lines that responsibility had embedded in the croupier's forehead.

She said: "You look like a nice hard-working man, to me. A good family man. You probably got a nice wife, couple of nice kiddies at home. You worry a little sometimes, though, because the money a croupier makes isn't a hell of a lot. And growing youngsters need this and that and the bills pile up and a man worries and the end isn't in sight because you're young yet and there's years and years of struggle still coming up."

The croupier swallowed. He took a breath. He looked down at the thousands of teel credits on the table. He looked up again.

"Look at me," said the woman. "Look at what the guy did to me. You can see it in my eyes."

The croupier did look. Then he took another breath and then he looked down once more at the money on the table, and then he did something that would probably make him spit for the rest of his life every time he stared into a mirror. He whispered:

"Yeah. I know Artie Sterling. He was in here this evening early."

Uh huh. And now the big one. "Where'd he go?"

The croupier took a last long drowning breath and his rake started to pull in the teels. "Okay, lady, okay. The guy's shacked up right now in Residential, Number 327. With somebody else's wife. That what you want to know? That what you wanted me to say?"

The woman didn't answer. She let her eyes slit contemptuously for an instant before she turned, moved away from the table, and went quickly toward the lock that led to the spacelators outside.

Artie Sterling pulled the woman's arms from around his neck. "Look, baby," he said. His handsome forehead wrinkled, a little annoyed.

"Arthur...."

"Time to be shoving off, baby."

"Shoving off?" The woman's large brown eyes balled with dismay.

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