"Yes." Bigger's eyes narrowed. "Why?"

Unterzuyder surged angrily away from the wall. "I am not interested in your questions. I have my chosen mission in life. It is not the making of money!"

He brandished his cane. "I warn you, Mr. Bailes," he cried, "I am a nervous man. If I am not permitted to leave—"

Bigger spread his hands, astonished. "Don't think for a minute I'm keeping you. The only suggestion I wanted to make was that you and I could work together."

Unterzuyder took off his glasses. There were red marks around his eyes where the glasses had taken hold. He had inherited the famous thin nose and receding chin of the Unterzuyders. His pale thin lips worked nervously.

"I work alone, Mr. Bailes," he said haughtily. "And I work best when such as you try to set your pitiful little traps! Threaten me as you will, nothing can keep me from my purpose. And now good-day."

Bigger's voice was filled with disgust. "Your purpose being, of course, to find asteroid X and free your ancestors so they can go to work on the Solar System again!"

Unterzuyder glared, primly returned his glasses to his nose, and stalked off.

"Scoundrel!" he muttered, putting his hand over his heart. He gasped. It was racing. And he was sweating. Trembling. His mother, the Unterzuyder matriarch, had been quite right. He should take care of his health.

By the time he caught a one-wheeled gyromobile that came bowling down the glass street, he was feeling much better.

"Take me to the Hotel de Mars," he told the driver. He leaned back comfortably, gloved hands resting on the head of his cane while he looked around him. A strange, glass-domed city, set in the heart of Mars' desert wastelands. A thriving city, with low buildings touching the glass roof of the dome.

The rain-maker went on, the first drops splattering down from the overhead sprinkler system. Unterzuyder cringed.

"Driver, driver!" he cried, rapping smartly with his cane. "Do you want me to catch my death?"

The driver hurriedly caused the separate halves of the glassteel cupola to fold over the car. Unterzuyder settled back injuredly.

At the registration desk 

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