Lester Del Rey - Police Your Planet

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* * * Info * * *
Author: Del Rey, Lester
Title: Police Your Planet
Publisher: Ballantine Books
Copyright: Original copyright by Erik van Lhin, 1956. 1975 by Random House, Inc. Abridged version
published by Avalon Books, 1956. Shorter serialised version in Science Fiction Adventures, Future
Publications, Inc., 1953.
Printing: First, 05/1975. Second, 11/1981.
ISBN: 0-345-29858-6
Version history:
v1.0: Proof completed on 22/02/2006. Some obvious typographical errors in the original scan of the
treeware have been corrected, but the author’s version has been respected in all other matters.
Dedication
To JAMES BLISH
Who understood the intent
despite the content.
Back cover
UNDER THE DOME OF MARS
It was the biggest dome ever built, large enough to cover all of Marsport before the slums sprawled out
beyond it. The dome covered half the city, making breathing possible inside without a helmet.
But it wasn’t designed to stand stray bullets, and having firearms inside—except for a few chosen
men—was a crime punishable by death!
Suddenly Gordon heard a noise…someone was shooting at him!
* * * Text begins * * *
I
There were ten passengers in the little pressurized cabin of the electric bus that shuttled between the
rocket field and Marsport. Ten men, the driver—and Bruce Gordon!
He sat apart from the others, as he had kept to himself on the ten-day trip between Earth and Mars,
with the yellow stub of his ticket still defiantly in the band of his hat, proclaiming that Earth had paid his
passage without his permission being asked. His big, lean body was slumped slightly in the seat. Gray
eyes stared out from under black brows without seeing the reddish-yellow sand dunes slipping by. There
was no expression on his face. Even the hint of bitterness at the corners of his mouth was gone now.
He listened to the driver explaining to a couple of firsters that they were actually on what appeared to
be one of the mysterious canals when viewed from Earth. Every book on Mars gave the fact that the
canals were either an illusion or something which could not be detected on the surface of the planet.
Gordon lost interest in the subject, almost at once.
He glanced back toward the rocket that still pointed skyward back on the field, and then forward
toward the city of Marsport, sprawling out in a mass of slums beyond the edges of the dome that had
been built to hold air over the central part. And at last he stirred and reached for the yellow stub.
He grimaced at the ONE WAY stamped on it, then tore it into bits and let the pieces scatter over the
floor. He counted them as they fell; thirty pieces, one for each year of his life. Little ones for the two
years he’d wasted as a cop. Shreds for the four years as a kid in the ring before that—he’d never made
the top, though it had taken enough time getting rid of the scars from it. Bigger bits for two years also
wasted in trying his hand at professional gambling; they hadn’t made him a fortune, but they’d been fun at
the time. And the six final pieces that spelled his rise from a special reporter helping out with a police
shake-up coverage through a regular leg-man turning up rackets, and on up like a meteor until he was the
paper’s youngest top man, and a growing thorn in the side of the government. He’d made his big scoop,
all right. He’d dug up enough about the Mercury scandals to double circulation.
And the government had explained what a fool he’d been for printing half of a story that was never
supposed to be printed until it could all be revealed. They’d given him his final assignment, escorted him
to the rocket, and explained just how many grounds for treason they could use against him if he ever tried
to come back without their invitation.
He shrugged. He’d bought a suit of airtight coveralls and a helmet at the field. He had enough to get by
on for perhaps two weeks. And he had a set of reader cards in his pocket, in a pattern which the supply
house Earthside had assured him had never been exported to Mars. With them and the knife he’d
selected, he might get by.
The Solar Security office had given him the knife practice to make sure he could use it, just as they’d
made sure he hadn’t taken extra money with him beyond the regulation amount.
“You’re a traitor, and we’d like nothing better than seeing your guts spilled,” the Security man had told
him. “That paper you swiped was marked top secret. When we’re trying to build a Solar Federation
from a world that isn’t fully united, we have to be rough. But we don’t get many men with your
background—cop, tin-horn, fighter—who have brains enough for our work. So you’re bound for Mars,
rather than the Mercury mines. If…”
It was a big if, and a vague one. They needed men on Mars who could act as links in their information
bureau, and be ready to work on their side when the trouble they expected came. They could see what
went on, from the top. But they wanted men planted in all walks, where they could get information when
they asked for it. Trouble was due—overdue, they felt—and they wanted men who could serve them
loyally, even without orders. If he did them enough service, they might let him back to Earth. If he caused
trouble enough to bother them, they could still help him to Mercury.
“And suppose nothing happens?” he asked.
“Then who cares? You’re just lucky enough to be alive,” the agent told him flatly.
“And what makes you think I’m going to be a spy for Security?”
The other had shrugged. “Why not, Gordon? You’ve been a spy for six years now—against the
crooked cops and tin-horns who were your friends, and against the men who’ve tried to make something
out of man’s conquest of space. You’ve been a spy for a yellow scandal sheet. Why not for us?”
It had been a nasty fight, while it lasted. And maybe he was here only because the other guy had proved
a little faster with the dirtiest punches. Or maybe because Gordon had been smart enough to realize that
Security was right—his background might be useful on Mars. Useful to himself, at least.
They were in the slums around the city now. Marsport had been settled faster than it was ready to
receive colonists. Temporary buildings had been thrown up and then had remained, decaying into
death-traps, where the men whose dreams had gone seethed and died in crowded filth. It wasn’t a pretty
view that visitors got as they first reached Mars. But nobody except the romantic fools had ever thought
frontiers were pretty.
The drummer who had watched Gordon tear up his yellow stub moved forward now, his desire to
make an impression stronger than his dislike of the other. “First time?” he asked, settling his fat little
carcass into the seat beside the larger man.
Gordon nodded, mentally cataloguing the drummer as to social, business, and personal life. The
cockroach type, midway between the small-businessman slug and the petty-crook spider types that
weren’t worth bothering with. He could get along without the last-minute pomposity.
But the other took it as interest. “Been here dozens of times myself. Risking your life, just to go into
Marsport. Why Congress doesn’t clean it up, I’ll never know! But business is business, I always say. It’s
better under the dome than out here, though. Last time I was here, they found a whole gang outside the
dome selling human meat. Absolutely. And cheaper than real meat.”
Gordon grunted. It was the usual untrained fool’s garbled account. He’d heard about it on the paper.
Some poor devil had taken home a corpse to a starving family out of sheer desperation. Something about
the man having come out to Mars because one of his kids had been too weak for Earth gravity, to open a
cobbling shop here. Then he’d fallen behind in his protection payments and had tried one of the cheap
gambling halls to make good. The paper’s account hadn’t indicated what happened to the family after
they hung him, but a couple of the girls had been almost pretty. Maybe they’d been able to live.
Gordon’s mind switched from gambling to the readers in his bag. He had no intention of starving
here—nor staying, for that matter. The cards were plastic, and should be good for a week or so of use
before they showed wear. During that time, by playing it carefully, he should have his stake. Then, if the
gaming tables here were as crudely run as an old-timer he’d known on Earth had said, he could try a
coup. If it worked, he’d have enough to open a cheap-john joint of his own, maybe. At least, that’s what
he’d indicated to the Security men.
But the price of bribing a ship to take him back to Earth without a card came to about the same figure,
and there were plenty of ways of concealing himself, once he got back…
“…be at Mother Corey’s soon,” the fat little drummer babbled on. “Notorious—worst place on Mars.
Take it from me, brother, that’s something! Even the cops are afraid to go in there. Seven hundred to a
thousand of the worst sort—See it? There, to your left!”
The name was vaguely familiar as one of the sore spots of Marsport. Gordon looked, and spotted the
ragged building, half a mile outside the dome. It had been a rocket maintenance hangar once, then had
been turned into a temporary dwelling for the first deportees when Earth began flooding Mars. Now,
seeming to stand by habit alone, it radiated desolation and decay.
Sudden determination crystalized in Gordon’s mind. He’d been vaguely curious as to whether the
Security boys would have a spotter on his movements. Now he knew what to do about it—and this was
as good a spot to start as any.
He stood up, grabbing for his bag, and spinning the fat thighs of the suddenly squealing drummer aside
with a contemptuous shove. He jerked forward, and caught the driver’s shoulder. “Getting off!” he
announced.
The driver shrugged his hand away. “Don’t be crazy, mister! They…” He turned and saw it was
Gordon. His face turned blank, even though there was no yellow card for his eyes to study now. “It’s
your life, buster,” he said, and reached for the brake. “I’ll give you five minutes to get into coveralls and
helmet and out through the airlock.”
Gordon needed less than that. He’d practiced all the way from Earth, knowing there might be times
when speed in getting into the airtight clothing would count. The transparent plastic of the coveralls went
on easily enough, and his hands found the seals quickly. He slipped his few possessions into a bag at his
belt, slid the knife into a spring holster above his wrist, and picked up the bowl-shaped helmet. It seated
on a plastic seal and the little air-compressor at his back began to hum, ready to turn the thin wisp of
Mars’ atmosphere into a barely breathable pressure. He tested the Marspeaker—an amplifier and
speaker in another pouch, designed to raise the volume of his voice to a level where it would carry
through even the air of Mars.
The driver swore at the lash of sound, and grabbed for the airlock switch. Gordon barely had time to
jerk through the form-hugging plastic orifice before it snapped shut behind him. Then the bus left him. He
didn’t look back, but headed for the wreck of a building that was Mother Corey’s.
He moved down unpaved streets that zig-zagged along, thick with the filth of garbage and poverty—the
part of Mars never seen in the newsreels, outside the shock movies. Thin kids with big eyes and sullen
mouths crowded the streets in their airsuits, shouting profanity. Around a corner, he heard yelling, and
swung over to see a man beating a coarsely fat woman who was obviously his wife. The street was filled
with people watching with a numbed hunger for any kind of excitement
It was late afternoon, obviously. Men were coming from the few bus routes, lugging tools and lunch
baskets, slumped and beaten from labor in the atomic plants, the Martian conversion farms, and the
industries that had come inevitably where inefficiency was better than the high prices of imports. They
were sick men, sick down inside themselves, going home to the whining of wives and the squabbling of
their unwanted children; they were sicker because they knew themselves for failures, and could not deny
the truth of the nagging accusations of their families.
The saloons were doing well enough, apparently, judging by the number that streamed in through their
airlock entrances. But Gordon saw one of the barkeepers paying money to a thick-set rat with an
arrogant sneer, and he knew that the few profits from the cheap beer were never going home with the
owner. Storekeepers in the cheap little shops had the same lines on their faces as they saw on the faces
of their customers.
Poverty and misery were the keynotes here, rather than the vicious evil half-world the drummer had
babbled about. But to Gordon’s trained eyes, there was plenty of outright rottenness, too. There were
the young punks on the corners, eyeing him as he passed, and the furtive glances of women coming out
early to begin their emotionless rounds. Here and there, men with the ugly smirks of professional tough
guys lounged in front of taverns or barber-shops. Gordon passed a rickety old building where a group
inside were shooting craps or working on their knives and bludgeons. If it was a gang hideout, there was
no hiding involved. He saw two policemen, in what seemed like normal police clothes except for their
bowl-helmets; the aspirators and speakers were somehow built in, and unnoticeable. But they passed the
hideout without a look, and stalked down the street while sullen eyes followed them.
He grimaced, grateful that the supercharger on his airsuit filtered out some of the smell which the thin air
carried. He had thought he was familiar with human misery from his own Earth slum background. But
there was no attempt to disguise it here—no vain flowers withering in windows, no bravado from anyone
who was growing up to leave all this behind. This was dead end.
It grew quiet then, until he could hear the hissing of the compressor in his suit. Life here would depend
on that sound. Great atomic machines had been digging through the Martian deserts for nearly a century,
crack-ing oxygen out of the red sands. But the air was still too thin to breathe without compression.
The crowded streets thinned out now, and the buildings were older—so battered and weathered that
not even the most abject wage-earner could stand them. A few diseased beggars lounged about, and a
scattering of too-purposeful men moved along. But it was a quiet section, where toughness was taken for
granted, and no smirk was necessary to prove a man’s rise to degradation.
Ahead, Mother Corey’s reared up—a huge, ugly half cylinder of pitted metal and native bricks,
showing the patchwork of decades, before repairs had been aban-doned. There were no windows,
though there had once been. And the front was covered with a big sign that spelled out condemned, in
mockery of the tattered shreds that had once been an official notice. The airseal was filthy, and there was
no bell.
Gordon kicked against the side, waited, and kicked again. A slit opened and closed. He waited, then
drew his knife and began prying at the worn cement around the airseal, looking for the lock that had once
been there.
The seal suddenly quivered, indicating the metal inside had been withdrawn. Gordon grinned tautly,
stepped through, and pushed the blade against the inner plastic.
“All right, all right,” a voice whined out of the darkness. “You don’t have to puncture my seal. You’re
in.”
“Then call them off!”
A wheezing chuckle answered him, and a phosphor bulb glowed weakly, shedding some light on a filthy
hall that led to rickety steps, where four men stood ready to jump downward on the intruder. “Okay,
boys,” the voice said. “Come on down. He’s alone, anyhow. What’s pushing, stranger?”
“A yellow ticket,” Gordon told him. “A yellow ticket and a Government allotment that’ll last me two
weeks in the dome. I figure on making it last six here, until I can shake down and case the lay. And don’t
let my being a firster give you hot palms. My brother was Lanny Gordon!”
That happened to be true, though he hadn’t seen his brother from the time the man had left the family as
a young punk to the day they finally convicted him on his tenth murder and gave him the warming bench
for a twenty-first birthday present But here, if it was like places he’d known on Earth, even second-hand
contact with “muscle” was useful.
It seemed to work. A fat hulk of a man oozed out of the shadows, his gray face contorting its doughy
fat into a yellow-toothed grin, and a filthy hand waved back the other men. There were a few wisps of
long, gray hair on the head and face, and they quivered as he moved forward.
“Looking for a room?” he whined.
“I’m looking for Mother Corey.”
“Then you’re looking at him, cobber,” the grotesque lump of flesh answered. “Sleep on the floor, want
a bunk, squat with four, or room and duchess to yourself?”
There was a period of haggling then, followed by a wait as Mother Corey kicked four grumbling men
out of a four-by-seven hole on the second floor. Gordon’s money had carried more weight than his
brother’s reputation, and for that Corey was willing to humor his insane wish to be completely by himself,
even. He spread a hand out coarsely. “All yours, cobber, while your crackle’s blue.”
It was a filthy, dark place. In one corner was an un-sheeted bed. Marks on the floor showed where
another had been beside it, to house another couple before. There was a rusty bucket for water, a filthy
sink, with a can on the floor for waste water, and a disposal pail that had apparently been used only as a
chair, from the looks and smell of the place. Plumbing and such luxuries hadn’t existed for years, except
for the small cistern and worn water recovery plant in the basement, beside the tired-looking weeds in the
hydroponic tanks that tried unsuccessfully to keep the air breathable.
“What about a lock on the door?” Gordon asked.
“What good would it do you? Got a different way here, we have. One credit a week, and you get
Mother Corey’s word nobody busts in. And it sticks, cobber—one way or the other.”
Gordon paid, and tossed his pouch on the filthy bed. With a little work, the place could be cleaned
enough, and he had a strong stomach. Eating was another matter—there was a section in the back where
thermocapsules could be used to heat food, but…
He pulled the cards out of his pouch, trying to be casual. Mother Corey stood staring at the pack while
Gordon changed out of his airsuit, retching faintly as the full effluvium of the place hit him. “Where does a
man eat around here?” he asked.
Mother Corey pried his eyes off the cards and ran a thick tongue over heavy lips. “Eh? Oh. Eat.
There’s a place about ten blocks back. Cobber, stop teasing me! With elections coming up and the boys
loaded with vote money back in town—with a deck of cheaters like that—you want to eat?”
He picked the deck up and studied the box fondly, while a faraway look came into his clouded eyes.
“Same ones—same identical ones I wore out nigh thirty years ago; Smuggled two decks up here. Set to
clean up—and I did, for a while.” He shook his head sadly, making the thin hairs wave wildly around his
jellied jowls and head, and handed the deck back to Gordon. “Come on down. For the sight of these, I’ll
give you the lay for your pitch. And when your luck’s made or broken, remember Mother Corey was
your friend first, and your old Mother can get longer use from them than you can.”
He waddled off, trailing a cloud of garbage odors and telling of his plans to take Mars for a cleaning,
once long ago. Gordon followed him, staring at the filth around him. Corey’s plans had been about the
same as his present ones, and this was the result: landlord of a crumbling pile of decay, living beyond the
law, and growing old among crooks and riff-raff.
He grimaced. Ten days! He wouldn’t make the mistake of being too greedy. Ten days, and then he’d
make his big pitch.
His thoughts were churning so busily that he didn’t see the blond girl until she had forced her way past
them on the stairs. Then he turned back, but she had vanished into one of the rooms. Anyhow, this was
Mars, and Gordon had no time for by-paths now. Mars! He spat into the moldy dust on the floor and
hurried after Mother Corey.
II
A lot could be done in ten days, when a man knew what he was after and hated to go back to the place
he called home. It was exactly ten days later when Gordon stood in the motley crowd inside the barnlike
room where Fats ran a bar along one wall and filled the rest of the space with assorted tables, all worn.
Gordon was sweating slightly as he stood at the roulette table where both zero and double-zero were
reserved for the house.
The croupier was a little wizened man wanted on Earth for murder, but not important enough to track
down to Mars. Now it seemed as if he’d soon be wanted here for more of the same, from the looks he
was giving the big, dark man who faced him. His eyes darted down to the point of the knife that showed
un-der Gordon’s sleeve, and he licked his lips, showing snaggle teeth. The wheel hesitated and came to a
halt, with the ball trembling in a pocket.
“Twenty-One wins again,” he mouthed, and pushed chips across toward Gordon, as if every one of
them came out of his own pay. “Place your bets.” The words were automatic, now no more than a
conditioned reflex.
Two others around the table watched narrowly as Gordon left his chips where they were; they reached
for their own chips, then exchanged looks and shook their heads. In a Martian roulette game, numbers
with that much riding just didn’t turn up. Some of the others licked eager lips, but the croupier gave them
no time. It was bad enough without more riding on it. Sweat stood out on his head, and he shifted his
weight, then caught the wheel and spun it savagely.
Gordon’s leg ached from his strained position, but he shifted his weight onto it more heavily, and new
spots of sweat popped out on the croupier’s face. His eyes darted down, to where the full weight of
Gordon seemed to rest on the heel that was grinding into his in-step. His eyes flicked to the knife point.
But there was some degree of loyalty in him toward Fats Eller. He tried to pull his foot off the button that
was concealed in the floor.
The heel ground harder, bringing a groan from him. And the ball hovered over Twenty-One and came
to rest there once more.
Slowly, painfully, the little man counted stacks of chips and moved them across the table toward
Gordon, his hands trembling. The sweat began to dry now, and his tongue darted across his broken teeth
in a frenzy.
Gordon straightened from his awkward position, drawing his foot back, and reached out for the pile of
chips. For a second, he hesitated, watching the little man fidget, while he let the knife blade slide out
another quarter inch from his sleeve. Then he scooped it up and nodded. “Okay,” he decided. “I’m not
greedy.”
The strain of watching the games until he could spot the fix and then holding the croupier down had left
him momentarily weak, but he still could feel the tensing of the crowd. Now he let his eyes run over
them—the night citizens of Marsport, lower dome section. Spacemen who’d missed their ships, men
who’d come here with dreams, and stayed without them—the shopkeepers who couldn’t meet their graft
and were here to try to win it on a last chance, street women and petty grifters—those who believed that
a rude interior meant a more honest wheel and those who no longer cared, until their last cent was gone.
The air was thick with the smell of their unwashed bodies—all Mars stank, since water was still too rare
for frequent bathing—and their cheap perfume, while the air was clouded with Marsweed cigarettes. But
thicker than that was a hunger over them—something demanding excitement, and now about to be fed.
Gordon swung where their eyes pointed, until he saw Fats Eller sidling through the groups. The
sour-faced, pudgy man wasn’t happy about the turn of events. His face showed that, together with
determination to do something.
Gordon let, the knife slip into the palm of his hand as the crowd seemed to hold its breath. Fats stared
at it with a half-contemptuous sneer, but made no move to come closer. He plucked a sheaf of Martian
banknotes from his pocket and tossed them to the croupier.
“Cash in his chips,” he ordered harshly. Then his pouchy eyes turned to Gordon. “Get your money,
punk, and get out! And stay out!”
For a moment, as he began pocketing the bills, Gordon thought he was going to get away that easily.
Fats watched him dourly, then swung on his heel, just as a shrill, strangled cry went up from someone in
the crowd.
The deportee let his glance jerk to it, then froze. His eyes caught the sight of a hand pointing behind him,
and he knew it was too crude a trick to bother with. But he paused, shocked to see the girl he’d seen on
Mother Corey’s stairs, gazing at him in well-feigned warning. She looked like a blond angel who had
been out in the rain just long enough to begin tarnishing. But on her, the brassiness of her hair and the
too-experienced pout of her lips looked almost good. Or it could have been the contrast with the blowsy
women around her. Her figure…In spite of his better judgment, it caught his eyes and drew them down
over curves and swells that might be too ripe for Earth fashion, but would always be right for arousing a
man’s passion.
Then he ripped his eyes back to Fats, who had started to turn again. Gordon took a step backward,
preparing to duck. And again the girl’s finger motioned behind him. He disregarded it—and realized
suddenly that his action was a mistake.
It was the faintest swish in the air that caught his ear, and he brought his shoulders up and his head
down, just as the sap struck. Fast as his reaction was, it was almost too late. The weapon crunched
against his shoulder and slammed over the back of his neck, almost knocking him out. But he held his
grip on himself.
His heel lashed back and caught the shin of the man behind him. His other leg spun him around, still
crouching, and the knife in his hand started coming up, sharp edge leading, and aimed for the belly of the
bruiser who confronted him. The pug-ugly saw the blade, and a thick animal sound gurgled from his
mouth, while he tried to check his lunge.
Gordon felt the blade strike, but he was already pulling his swing, and it only sank half an inch, gashing a
long streak that crimsoned behind it. The thug shrieked hoarsely and fell over. That left the way clear to
the door, where the bouncer had been stationed. Gordon was through it and into the night in two soaring
leaps. After only a few days on Mars, his legs were still hardened to Earth gravity, so he had more than a
double advantage over the others.
Outside, it was the usual Martian night in the poorer section of the dome, which meant it was nearly
dark. Most of the street lights had never been installed—graft had eaten up the appropriations,
instead—and the nearest one was around the corner, leaving the side of Fats’ Place in the shadow.
Gordon checked his speed, threw himself flat, and rolled back against the building, just beyond the steps
that led to the street.
Feet pounded out of the door above as Fats and the bouncer broke through. Gordon’s hand had
already knotted a couple of coins in his kerchief. He waited until the two turned uncertainly up the street
and tossed it. It struck the wall near the corner, sailed on, and struck again at the edge of the unpaved
street with a muffled sound.
Fats and the other swung, just in time to see a bit of dust where it had hit. “Around the corner!” Fats
yelled. “After him, and shoot!”
In the shadows, Gordon jerked sharply. It was rare enough to have a gun here. But to use one inside
the dome was unthinkable. His eyes shot up, where the few dim lights were reflected off the great plastic
sheet that was held up by the air pressure and reinforced with heavy webbing. It was the biggest dome
ever built, large enough to cover all of Marsport before the slums sprawled out beyond it; it still covered
half the city, making breathing possible here without a helmet But it wasn’t designed to stand stray bullets,
and having firearms inside it, except for a few chosen men, was a crime punishable by death.
Fats had swung back and was now herding the crowd inside his place. He might have been only a small
gambling-house owner, but within his own circle his words carried weight. They stayed inside, and the
door shut behind them, sealing tightly as doors always sealed, even under the dome.
Gordon got to his hands and knees and began crawling away from the comer. He came to a dark alley,
smelling of decay where garbage had piled up without being carted away. He turned into it, stumbling
over a woman busy rolling a drunk. She darted to the end of the alley, and he moved after her more
slowly. Beyond lay a lighted street, and a sign that announced Mooney’s Amusement Palace—Drinks
Free to Patrons! He snapped a look up and down the street, and walked briskly toward the somewhat
plusher gambling hall there. Fats couldn’t touch him in a competitor’s place.
For a second, he thought he heard steps behind him, but a quick glance back showed nothing. Then he
was inside Mooney’s, and heading quickly for the dice table.
He lost steadily on small bets for half an hour, admiring the skilled palming of the “odds” cubes. The loss
was only a tiny dent in his new pile, but he bemoaned it properly, as if he were broke, and moved over to
the bar. This one had seats. The bartender had a consolation boilermaker waiting for him, and he gulped
half of it down before he realized the beer had been needled with ether. The tastes here were on the
rugged side.
Beside him, a cop was drinking the same, slowly, watching another policeman at a Canfield game. He
was obviously winning, and now he got up and came over to cash in his chips.
“You’d think they’d lose count once in a while,” he complained to his companion. “But nope—fifty
even a night, no more…Well, come on, Pete, we’d better get back to Fats and tell him the swindler got
away.”
Gordon followed them out and turned south, down the street toward the edge of the dome and the
entrance where he’d parked his airsuit and helmet. He kept glanc-ing back whenever he was in the
thicker shadows, but there seemed to be no one following him, in spite of the itching at the back of his
neck.
At the gate of the dome, he glanced back again, then ducked into the locker building. The money in his
pockets seemed heavier now—something that kept worrying him with every step. For a minute, he
debated going back to register at one of the better hotels in Marsport Center. But too many stories came
into his head. He wasn’t clothed for it, and the odor of bathless living in Mother Corey’s still clung to him.
He’d be immediately suspected there, and it wasn’t too hard to bribe one’s way into a room. A bum with
money had more chances in a place like Mother Corey’s—where the grotesque hulk that ruled the roost
apparently lived up rigidly to the one ethic of his given word.
He threaded through the maze of the lockers with his knife ready in his hand, trying not to attract
suspicion. At this hour, though, most of the place was empty. The crowds of foremen and delivery men
who’d be going in and out through the day were lacking, and there were only a few who crossed the line
from the dome to the slums.
He found his suit and helmet and clamped them on quickly, transferring the knife to its spring sheath
outside the suit. He checked the little batteries that were recharged by tiny generators in the soles of the
boots with every step. Then he paid his toll for the opening of the private slit and went through, into the
darkness outside the dome.
Lights bobbed about—police in pairs patrolling in the better streets, walking as far from the houses as
they could; a few groups, depending on numbers for safety; some of the very poor, stumbling about and
hoping for a drink somehow, sure they had nothing to lose; and probably hoods from the gangs that ruled
the nights here.
Gordon left his torch unlighted, and moved along; there was a little light from the phosphorescent
markers at some of the corners, and from the stars. He could just make his way without marking himself
with a light. And he’d be better able to see any light following him.
Damn it, he should have hired a few of the younger bums from Mother Corey’s—though that might
have been inviting robbery instead of preventing it.
Here he couldn’t hear footsteps, he realized. He located a pair of patrolling cops and followed them
down one street, until they swung off. Then he was on his own again.
“Gov’nor!” The word barely reached him, and he jerked around, the knife twitching into his hand. It
was a thin kid of perhaps twenty years behind him, carrying a torch that was filtered to bare visibility. It
swung up, and he saw a pock-marked face that was twisted in a smile meant to be ingratiating.
“You’ve got a pad on your tail,” the kid said, again as low as his amplifier would permit. “Need a
convoy?”
Gordon studied him briefly, and grinned. Then his grin wiped out as the kid’s arm flashed to his shoulder
and back, a series of quick jerks that seemed almost a blur. Four knives stood buried in the ground at
Gor-don’s feet, forming a square—and a fifth was in the kid’s hand.
“How much?” Gordon asked, as the kid scooped up the blades and shoved them expertly back into
shoulder sheaths. The kid’s hand shaped a C quickly, and Gordon slipped his arm through a self-sealing
slit in the airsuit and brought out two hundred-credit bills.
“Thanks, gov’nor,” the kid said, stowing them away. “You won’t regret it.” He swung his dim light
down, and Gordon started to turn. Then the kid’s voice rose sharply to a yell.
“Okay, honey, he’s the Joe!”
Out of the darkness, ten to a dozen figures loomed up. The kid had jumped aside with a lithe leap, and
now stood between Gordon and the group moving in for the kill. Gordon turned to run, and found himself
surrounded. His eyes flickered around, trying to spot something in the darkness that would give him
shelter.
A bludgeon was suddenly hurtling toward him, and he ducked it, his blood thick in his throat and his
ears ringing with the same pressure of fear he’d always known just before he was kayoed in the ring. But
pacificism would do him no good. He selected what he hoped was the thinnest section of the attackers
and leaped forward. With luck, he might jump over them, using his Earth strength.
There was a flicker of dawn-light in the sky, now, however; and he made out others behind, ready for
just such a move. He changed his lunge in mid-stride, and brought his arm back with the knife. It met a
small round shield on the arm of the man he had chosen, and was deflected at once.
“Give ’em hell, gov’nor,” the kid’s voice yelled, and the little figure was beside him, a shower of blades
seeming to leap from his hand in the glare of his now bare torch. Shields caught them frantically, and then
the kid was in with a heavy club he’d torn from someone’s hand.
Gordon had no time to consider his sudden traitor-ally. He bent to the ground seizing the first rocks he
could find, and threw them. One of the hoods dropped his club in ducking, and Gordon caught it up and
swung in a single motion that stretched the other out.
Then it was a mêlée. The kid’s open torch, stuck on his helmet, gave them light enough, until Gordon
could switch on his own. Then the kid dropped behind him, fighting back-to-back. Something hit his arm,
and Gordon switched the club to his left, awkwardly. He caught a blow on the shoulder, and kicked out
savagely as someone lunged for his feet. Here, in close quarters, the attackers were no longer using
knives. One might be turned on its owner, and a slit suit meant death by asphyxiation.
Gordon saw the blond girl on the outskirts, her face taut and glowing. He tried to reach her with a
thrown club wrested from another man, but she leaped nimbly aside, shouting commands. Nobody paid
any attention, and she began moving in cautiously, half-eager and half-afraid.
Two burly goons were suddenly working together. Gordon swung at one, ducked a blow from the
other, and then saw the first swinging again. He tried to bring his club up—but he knew it was too late. A
dull weight hit the side of his head, and he felt himself falling. This was it, he thought. They’d strip him or
slash his suit—and he’d be dead without knowing he had died. He tried to claw his way to his feet,
hearing a ghost-voice from his past counting seconds. Then he passed out.
It took only minutes for dawn to become day on Mars, and the sun was lighting up the messy section of
back street when Gordon’s eyes opened and the pain of sight struck his aching head. He groaned, then
looked frantically for the puff of escaping air. But his suit was still sealed. Ahead of him, the kid lay
sprawled out, blood trickling from the broken section of an ugly bruise along his jaw.
Then Gordon felt something on his suit, and his eyes darted to hands just finishing an emergency patch.
His eyes darted up and met those of the blond vixen!
Amazement kept him motionless for a second. There were tears in the eyes of the girl, and a sniffling
sound reached him through her Marspeaker. Apparently, she hadn’t noticed that he had revived, though
her eyes were on him. She finished the patch, and ran permasealer over it. Then she began putting her
supplies away, tucking them into a bag that held notes that could only have been stolen from his
pockets—her share of the loot, apparently.
He was still thinking clumsily as she rose to her feet and turned to leave. She cast a glance back,
hesitated, and then began to move off.
He got his feet under him slowly, but he was reviving enough to stand the pain in his head. He came to
摘要：

***Info***Author:DelRey,LesterTitle:PoliceYourPlanetPublisher:BallantineBooksCopyright:OriginalcopyrightbyErikvanLhin,1956.1975byRandomHouse,Inc.AbridgedversionpublishedbyAvalonBooks,1956.ShorterserialisedversioninScienceFictionAdventures,FuturePublications,Inc.,1953.Printing:First,05/1975.Second,11...

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