had been on the trail for less than a hundred hours and already had a lead. Obviously the Semiramide disaster was the tip-off; no Sandman would go that far to establish a shady reputation. 

Farradyne was prepared to go on as far as he had to. The idea of actually running love lotus was not appealing, but the SAND office had been fighting the things for a half century, watching helplessly while the moral fibre of the race was being undermined, and somehow it was far better to let a few more lives be wrecked by hellflowers than to save a few and let the whole thing steamroller into monumental destruction. 

Farradyne still had to duck a few people who might like to nail his hide to a barn door, but sooner or later he would come out on top and then he could look his fellow man in the eye and ask him to forget one bad mistake. 

Being on this first step eased his mind somewhat. He would be rid of Norma tomorrow morning and on his way with Cahill. He went to sleep easily for the first time since that meeting with Norma at Ganymede. He dreamed a pleasant dream of freedom and success that ended with the bark of a pistol. 

Shocked out of his sleep, he lay stunned and blinking for a moment, then leaped out of bed and raced to the corridor. The light blinded him at first, but not enough to stop him from seeing Cahill. 

Cahill came along the tiny corridor listlessly, blood dribbling from under his left arm, running down his fingers and splashing to the floor. On Cahill's face was a stunned expression, full of incomprehension, semi-blank. Blood ran down his leg, across his ankle, and left red footprints on the floor. 

Through whatever haze clouded Cahill's eyes, he saw Farradyne. He stumbled forward and reached for Farradyne, but collapsed in midstep like a limp towel, to stretch out at Farradyne's feet like a tired baby. His voice sighed out in a dying croon that sounded like a rundown phonograph. 

Behind him came Norma Hannon. Her eyes were blazing with an unholy satisfied light and her body was alive and sinuous. A tiny automatic dangled from her right hand. Her lips curled as she came up to Cahill and poked at the man's hand with her bare foot. 

"He--" she started to cry in a strident tone. Then the semi-hysteria faded and she looked down at Cahill again, relishing the situation. 

Farradyne shuddered. What had happened was obvious. Cahill had 

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