rystal City made up in violence what it lacked in size. It was a typical boom town of the Lunar mining regions. Mining and a thriving spacefreight trade in heavy metals made it a mecca for the toughest space-screws and hardest living prospector-miners to be found in the inhabited worlds. Saloons and cheap lodging-houses, gambling dens and neon-washed palaces of expensive sin, the jail and a flourishing assortment of glittery funeral parlors faced each other across two main intersecting streets. X marked the spot and life was the least costly of the many commodities offered for sale to rich-strike suckers who funneled in from all Luna.

The town occupied the cleared and leveled floor of a small ringwall "crater," and beneath its colorful dome of rainbowy perma-plastic, it sizzled. Dealers in mining equipment made overnight fortunes which they lost at the gaming tables just as quickly. In the streets one rubbed elbows with denizens from every part of the solar system; many of them curiously not anthropomorphic. Glittering and painted purveyors of more tawdry and shopworn goods than mining equipment also made fortunes overnight, and some of them paid for their greedy snatching at luxury with their empty lives. Brawls were sporadic and usually fatal.

Crystal City sizzled, and the Lunar Police sat on the lid as uneasily as if the place were a charge of high-explosive. It was, but it made living conditions difficult for a policeman, and made the desk-sergeant's temper extremely short.

Tod Denver's experience with police stations had consisted chiefly of uncomfortable stays as an invited, reluctant guest. To a hard-drinking man, such invitations are both frequent and inescapable. So Tod Denver was uneasy in the presence of such an obviously ill-tempered desk sergeant. Memories are tender documents from past experience, and Denver's experiences had induced extreme sensitivity about jails. Especially Crystal City's jail.

Briefly, he acquainted irritable officialdom with details of his find in the Appenines. The sergeant was fat, belligerent and unphilosophical.

"You stink," said the sergeant, twisting his face into more repulsive suggestion of a distorted rubber mask.

Tod Denver tried to continue. The sergeant cut him off with a rude suggestion.

"So what?" added the official. "Suppose you did run into a murder. Do I care? Maybe you killed the old guy yourself and are trying to cover up. I don't know."

He scowled speculatively at Denver who waited and worried.

"Forget it," went on the sergeant. "We ain't got time to chase down everybody that knocks off a lone prospector. There's a lot of punks like you I'd like to bump myself right here in Crystal City. Even if you're telling the truth I don't believe you. If you'd thought he had something valuable you'd have swiped it yourself, not come running to us. Don't bother me. If you got something, snag it. If not, shove it—"

The suggestion was detailed, anatomical.

Charley giggled amiably. Startled, the sergeant looked up and caught sight of the monstrosity. He shrieked.

"What's that?"

"Charley, my moondog," Denver explained. "They're quite scarce here."

Charley made eerie, chittering noises and settled on Denver's shoulder, waiting for his master to stroke the filaments of his blunt head.

"Looks like a cross between a bird and a carrot. Try making him scarce from my office."

"Don't worry, he's housebroke."

"Don't matter. Get him out of here, out of Crystal City. We have an ordinance against pets. Unhealthy beasts. Disease-agents. They foul up the atmosphere."

"Not Charley," Denver argued hopelessly. "He's not animal; he's a natural air-purifier. Gives off ozone."

"Two hours you've got to get him out of here. Two hours. Out of town. I hope you go with him. If he don't stink, you do. If I have any trouble with either of you, you go in the tank."

Tod Denver gulped and held his nose. "Not your tank. No thanks. I want a hotel room with a tub and shower, not a night in your glue factory. Come on, Charley. I guess you sleep in the ship."

Charley grinned evilly at the sergeant. He gave out chuckling sounds, as if meditating. To escape disaster Tod Denver snatched him up and fled.

---

fter depositing Charley in the ship, he bought clean clothes and registered for a room at the Spaceport Hotel. After a bath, a shave and a civilized meal he felt more human than he had for many lonely months. He transferred his belongings to the new clothes, and opened his billfold to audit his dwindling resources. After the hotel and the new clothes and the storage-rent at the spaceport for his ship, there was barely enough for even a bust of limited dimensions. It would have to do.

As he replaced the money a battered photograph fell out. It was the picture of Laird Martin's child. A girl, not over four. She was plump and pretty in the vague way children are plump and pretty. An old picture, of course; faded and worn from frequent handling. Dirty and not too clear. How could anyone trace a small orphan girl on Earth with the picture and the incomplete address? She would be older, of course; maybe six or seven. Schools do keep records and lists of the pupils' names might be available if he had money to investigate. Which he hadn't.

His ship carried three months of supplies. Beside the money in his billfold, he had nothing else. Nothing but Charley, and the sales of him had always backfired. At best, a moondog was not readily marketable. Besides, could he part with Charley?

Maybe if he looked into those old Martian workings, the money would be forthcoming. After all, the dying Laird Martin had only asked that a share be reserved for his daughter. Put some aside for the kid. Use some to find her. Keep careful accounting and give her a fair half. More if she needed it and there wasn't too much. It was a nice thought. Denver felt warm and decent inside.

For the moment some of his thoughts verged upon indecencies.

He lacked the price but it cost nothing to look. He called it widow-shopping, which was not a misnomer in Crystal City. There were plenty of widows, some lonely, some lively. Some free and uninhibited. And he did have the price of the drinks.

The impulse carried him outside to a point near the X-like intersection of streets. Here, the possibilities of sin and evil splendor dazzled the eye.

Pressured atmosphere within the domed city was richer than Tod Denver was used to. Oxygen in pressure tanks costs money; and he had accustomed himself to do with as little as possible. Charley helped slightly. Now the stuff went tingling through nostrils, lungs and on to his veins. It swept upward to his brain and blood piled up there, feeling as if full of bursting tiny bubbles like champagne. He felt gay and feckless, light-headed and big-headed. Ego expanded, and he imagined himself a man of destiny at the turning point of his career.

He was not drunk, except on oxygen. Not drunk yet. But thirsty. The street was garish with display of drinkeries. In neon lights a tilted glass dripped beads of color. There was a name in luminous pastel-tubing:

Pot o' Stars.

Beneath the showering color stood a girl. Tod Denver's blood pressure soared nimbly upward and collided painfully with blocked safety valves. The look was worth it. Tremendous. Hot stuff.

Wow!

When bestially young he had dreamed lecherously of such a glorious creature. Older, bitter experience had taught him that they existed outside his price class. His eyes worked her over in frank admiration and his imagination worked overtime.

She was Martian, obviously, from her facial structure, if one noticed her face.

Martian, of course. But certainly not one of the Red desert folk, nor one of the spindly yellow-brown Canal-keepers. White. Probably sprang originally from the icy marshes near the Pole, where several odd remnants of the old white races still lived, and lingered painfully on the short rations of dying Mars.

She was pale and perilous and wonderful. Hair was shimmering bright cascade of spun platinum that fell in muted waves upon shoulders of naked beauty. Her eyes swam liquid silver with purple lights dwelling within, and her sullen red lips formed a heartshaped mouth, as if pouting. Heavy lids weighed down the eyes, and heavier barbaric bracelets weighted wrists and ankles. Twin breasts were mounds of soft, sun-dappled snow frosted with thin metal plates glowing with gemfire. Her simple garment was metalcloth, but so fine-spun and gauzelike that it seemed woven of moonlight. It seemed as un-needed as silver leafing draped upon some exotic flowering, but somehow enhanced the general effect.

Her effect was overpowering. Denver followed her inside and followed her sweet, poisonous witchery as the girl glided gracefully along the aisle between ranked tables. As she entered the glittering room talk died for a moment of sheer admiration, then began in swift whispered accents. Men dreamed inaudibly and the women envied and hated her on sight.

She seemed well-known to the place. Her name, Denver learned from the awed whispering, was—Darbor....

The Pot o' Stars combined drinking, dancing and gambling. A few people even ate food. There was muffled gaiety, glitter of glass and chromium, and general bad taste in the decoration. The hostesses were dressed merely to tempt and tease the homesick and lovelorn prospectors and lure the better-paid mine-workers into a deadly proximity to alcohol and gambling devices.

---

he girl went ahead, and Denver followed, regretting his politeness when she beat him to the only unoccupied table. It had a big sign, Reserved, but she seemed waiting for no one, since she ordered a drink and merely played with it. She seemed wrapped in speculative contemplation of the other customers, as if estimating the possible profits to the house.

On impulse, Denver edged to her table and stood looking down at her. Cold eyes, like amber ice, looked through him.

"I know I look like a spacetramp," he observed. "But I'm not invisible. Mind if I pull up a cactus and squat?"

Her eyes were chill calculation.

"Suit yourself ... if you like to live dangerously."

Denver laughed and sat down. "How important are you? Or is it something else? You don't look so deadly. I'll buy you a drink if you like. Or dance, if you're careless about toes."

Her cold shrug stopped him. "Skip it," she snapped. "Buy yourself a drink if you can afford it. Then go."

"What makes you rate a table to yourself? I could go now but I won't. The liquor here's probably poison but who pays for it makes no difference to me. Maybe you'd like to buy me a short snort. Or just snort at me again. On you, it looks good."

The girl gazed at him languorously, puzzled. Then she let go with a laugh which sparkled like audible champagne.

"Good for you," she said eagerly. "You're just a punk, but you have guts. Guts, but what else? Got any money?"

Denver bristled. "Pots of it," he lied, as any other man would. Then, remembering suddenly, "Not with me but I know where to lay hands on plenty of it."

Her eyes calculated. "You're not the goon who came in from the Appenines today? With a wild tale of murder and claim-jumpers and old Martian workings?"

Quick suspicion dulled Denver's appreciation of beauty.

She laughed sharply. "Don't worry about me, stupid. I heard it all over town. Policemen talk. For me, they jump through hoops. Everybody knows. You'd be smart to lie low before someone jumps out of a sung-bush and says boo! at you. If you expected the cops to do anything, you're naive. Or stupid. About those Martian workings, is there anything to the yarn?"

Denver grunted. He knew he was talking too much but the urge to brag is masculine and universal.

"Maybe, I don't know. Martian miners dabbled in heavy metals. Maybe they found something there and maybe they left some. If they did, I'm the guy with the treasure map. Willing to take a chance on me?"

Darbor smiled calculatingly. "Look me up when you find the treasure. You're full of laughs tonight. Trying to pick me up on peanuts. Men lie down and beg me to walk on their faces. They lay gold or jewels or pots of uranium at my feet. Got any money—now?"

"I can pay ... up to a point," Denver confessed miserably.

"We're not in business, kid. But champagne's on me. Don't worry about it. I own the joint up to a point. I don't, actually. Big Ed Caltis owns it. But I'm the dummy. I front for him because of taxes and the cops. We'll drink together tonight, and all for free. I haven't had a good laugh since they kicked me out of Venusport. You're it. I hope you aren't afraid of Big Ed. Everybody else is. He bosses the town, the cops and all the stinking politicians. He dabbles in every dirty racket, from girls to the gambling upstairs. He pays my bills, too, but so far he hasn't collected. Not that he hasn't tried."

Denver was impressed. Big Ed's girl. If she was. And he sat with her, alone, drinking at Big Ed's expense. That was a laugh. A hot one. Rich, even for Luna.

"Big Ed?" he said. "The Scorpion of Mars!"

Darbor's eyes narrowed. "The same. The name sounds like a gangsters' nickname. It isn't. He was a pro-wrestler. Champion of the Interplanetary League for three years. But he's a gangster and racketeer at heart. His bully-boys play rough. Still want to take a chance, sucker?"

A waitress brought drinks and departed. Snowgrape Champagne from Mars cooled in a silver bucket. It was the right temperature, so did not geyser as Denver unskilfully wrested out the cork. He filled the glasses, gave one to the girl. Raising the other, he smiled into Darbor's dangerous eyes.

"The first one to us," he offered gallantly. "After that, we'll drink to Big Ed. I hope he chokes. He was a louse in the ring."

Darbor's face lighted like a flaming sunset in the cloud-canopy of Venus.

"Here's to us then," she responded. "And to guts. You're dumb and delightful, but you do something to me I'd forgotten could be done. And maybe I'll change my mind even if you don't have the price. I think I'll kiss you. Big Ed is still a louse, and not only in the ring. He thinks he can out-wrestle me but I know all the nasty holds. I play for keeps or not at all. Keep away from me, kid."

Denver's imagination had caught fire. Under the combined stimuli of Darbor and Snowgrape Champagne, he seemed to ascend to some high, rarified, alien dimension where life became serene and uncomplicated. A place where one ate and slept and made fortunes and love, and only the love was vital. He smoldered.

"Play me for keeps," he urged.

"Maybe I will," Darbor answered clearly. She was feeling the champagne too, but not as exaltedly as Denver who was not used to such potent vintages as Darbor and SG-Mars, 2028. "Maybe I will, kid, but ask me after the Martian workings work out."

"Don't think I won't," he promised eagerly. "Want to dance?"

Her face lighted up. She started to her feet, then sank back.

"Better not," she murmured. "Big Ed doesn't like other men to come near me. He's big, bad and jealous. He may be here tonight. Don't push your luck, kid. I'm trouble, bad trouble."

Denver snapped his fingers drunkenly. "That for Big Ed. I eat trouble."

Her eyes were twin pools of darkness. They widened as ripples of alarm spread through them. "Start eating," she said. "Here it comes!"

Big Ed Caltis stood behind Denver's chair.