The Bog."

"Is this true?" demanded Martin of Farradyne.

"I did have an accident there," said Farradyne. "But--"

The woman sneered. "Accident, you call it. Sorry, aren't you? Reeking with remorse. But not so grief-stricken that you'll not take this man out and kill him the way you killed my brother."

Farradyne grunted. "I don't know you from Mother Machree. I've had my trouble and I don't like it any more than you do."

"You're alive, at least," she snarled at him. "Alive and ready to go around skylarking again. But my brother is dead and you--"

"Am I supposed to blow out my brains? Would that make up for this brother of yours?" demanded Farradyne angrily. Some of the anguish of the affair returned. He recalled all too vividly his own mental meanderings at the time, and the feeling that suicide would erase that memory. But he had burned himself out with those long periods of self-reproach.

"Blow your brains out," advised the girl sharply. "Then the rest of us will be protected against you."

"I suppose I am responsible for you, too?" he asked bitterly.

Martin gulped down his drink. "I think I'd better find another ship," he said hurriedly.

Farradyne nodded curtly at Martin's back, then looked down at the girl. He felt again the powerful impulse to plead his case, to explain, to show his innocence. But he knew that this was the wrong thing to do. Martin had refused the job once Farradyne had been identified. This might be the start of what Clevis wanted. Farradyne could louse it up for fair by saying the wrong thing here and now. So instead of making some appeal to the woman, Farradyne eyed her coldly. There was something incongruous about her. She looked like the standard tomato of the spacelanes; she dressed the part and she acted it. The rough-hewn language and the cynical bitterness were normal enough, but they should not have been expressed in acceptable grammar and near-perfect diction. He had catalogued her as a drunken witch, but she was neither drunk nor a witch. Nor was she a thrill-seeking female out slumming for the fun of it. She belonged in the "Spaceman's Bar" but not among the lushes--

And then he caught it. He had been too far from it too long. The glazed, bored eyes, the completely blase attitude were the 

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