“I understand, sir. I understood that when I volunteered for this job.”
“Good. You leave for Mars tonight.”
A pair of black-tailed Venusians were sitting at the bar with a white-skinned Earth girl between them, as Hendrin the Mercurian entered. He had been on Mars only an hour, and wanted a drink to warm his gullet before he went any further. This was a cold planet; despite his thick shell-like hide, Hendrin didn’t overmuch care for the Martian weather.
“I’ll have a double bizant,” he snapped, spinning a silver three-creda piece on the shining counter. One of the Venusians looked up at that. The whip-like black tail twitched.
“You must have a powerful thirst, Mercurian!”
Hendrin glanced at him scornfully. “I’m just warming up for some serious drinking, friend. Bizant sets the blood flowing; it’s just a starter.”
The drink arrived, and he downed it in a quick gulp. That was good, he thought. “I’ll have another…and after it, a shot of dolbrouk as a chaser.”
“That’s more like it,” said the Venusian appreciatively. “You’re a man after my own heart.” To prove it, he downed his own drink—a mug of fiery brez. Roaring, he slapped his companion’s back and pinched the arm of the silent Earth-girl huddled between them.
Ideas started to form in Hendrin’s head. He was alone on a strange planet, and a big job faced him. These two Venusians were well along in their cups—and they wore the tight gray britches and red tunic of Darrien’s brigades. That was good.
As for the girl—well, she might help in the plan too. She was young and frightened-looking; probably she’d been caught in a recent raiding-party. Her clothes hung in tatters. Hendrin appreciatively observed the occasional bare patch of white thigh, the soft curve of breast, visible through the rents. Yes, she might do too. It depended on how drunk these Venusians were.
The Mercurian left his place at the bar and walked over to the carousing Venusians. “You sound like my type of men,” he told them. “Got some time?”
“All the time in the universe!”
“Good enough. Let’s take a booth in the back and see how much good brew we can pour into ourselves.” Hendrin jingled his pocket.“There’s plenty of cash here—cash I might part with for the company of two such as you!”
The Venusians exchanged glances, which Hendrin did not miss. They thought he was a sucker ready to be exploited. Well, the Mercurian thought, we’ll see who gets exploited. And as for the money—that was his master’s. He had an unlimited expense account for this mission. And he intended to use it to the utmost.
“Come, wench,” said one Venusian thickly. “ Let’s join this gentleman at a booth.”
Hendrin jammed his bulk into one corner of the booth, and one of the Venusians sat by his side. Across from him sat the other Venusian and the girl. Her eyes were red and raw, and her throat showed the mark of a recent rope.
Chuckling, Hendrin said, “Where’d you get the girl?”
“Planetoid Eleven,” one of the Venusians told him. “We were on a raiding party for Darrien, and found her in one of the colonies. A nice one, is she not?”
“I’ve seen better,” remarked Hendrin casually. “She looks sullen and angry.”
“They all do. But they warm up, once they see they’ve no alternative. How about some drinks?”
Hendrin ordered a round of brez for all three, and tossed the barkeep another three-creda coin. The drinks arrived. The Venusian nearest him reached clumsily for his and spilled three or four drops.
“Oopsh…waste of good liquor. Sorry.”
“Don’t shed tears,” Hendrin said. “There’s more where that came from.”
“Sure thing. Well, here’s to us all—Darrien too, damn his ugly skin!”
They drank. Then they drank some more. Hendrin matched them drink for drink, and paid for most—but his hard-shelled body quickly converted the alcohol to energy, while the Venusians grew less and less sure of their speech, wobblier and wobblier in coordination.
Plans took rapid shape in the Mercurian’s mind. He was here on a dangerous mission, and he knew the moment he ceased to think fast would be the moment he ceased to think.
Krodrang, Overlord of Mercury, had sent him here—Krodrang who had been content to rule the tiny planet without territorial ambitions for decades, but who suddenly had been consumed by the ambition to rule the universe as well. He had summoned Hendrin, his best agent, to the throne-room.
“Hendrin, I want you to go to Mars. Join Darrien’ s army. Get close to Darrien. And when you get the chance, steal his secrets. The Clanton Mine, the orthysynthetic duplicate robots, anything else. Bribe his henchmen. Steal his mistress. Do whatever you can—but I must have Darrien’s secrets! And when you have them—kill him. Then I shall rule the system supreme.”
“Yes, Majesty.”
In Hendrin’s personal opinion the Overlord was taken with the madness of extreme age. But it was not Hendrin’s place to question. He was loyal—and so he accepted the job without demur.
Now he was here. He needed some means of access to Darrien.
Pointing at the girl, he said, “What do you plan to do with her? She looks weak for a slave.”
“Weak! Nonsense. She’s as strong as an Earthman. They come that way, out in those colonies. We plan to bring her to Dorvis Graal, Darrien’s Viceroy. Dorvis Graal will buy her and make her a slave to Darrien—or possibly a mistress.”
Hendrin’s black eyes narrowed. “How much will Dorvis Graal pay?”
“A hundred credas platinum, if we’re lucky.”
The Mercurian surveyed the girl out of one eye. She was undeniably lovely, and there was something else—a smoking defiance, perhaps—that might make her an appealing challenge for a jaded tyrant. “Will ye take a hundred fifty from me?”
“From you, Mercurian?”
“A hundred-eighty, then.”
The girl looked up scornfully. Her breasts heaved as she said, “You alien pigs buy and sell us as if we’re cattle. But just wait! Wait until—”
One Venusian reached out and slapped her. She sank back into silence. “A hundred-eighty, you say?”
Hendrin nodded. “She might keep me pleasant company on the cold nights of this accursed planet.”
“I doubt it,” said the soberer of the two Venusians. “She looks mean. But we’d never get a hundred-eighty from Dorvis Graal. You can have her. Got the cash?”
Hendrin dropped four coins into the Venusian’s leathery palm.
“Done!” the Venusian cried. “The girl is yours!”
The Mercurian nodded approvingly. The first step on the road to Darrien’s chambers had been paved. He reached across the table and imprisoned the girl’s wrist in one of his huge paws, and smiled coldly as defiance flared on her face. The girl had spirit. Darrien might be interested.
Lon Archman shivered as the bitter Martian winds swept around him. It was just as it had been in the drug-induced tests Wentworth had run back in the Universal Intelligence office, with one little difference.
This was no dream. This was the real thing.
All he could see of Mars was the wide, flat, far-ranging plain of red sand, broken here and there by a rock outcrop or a twisted gabron-weed. In the distance he could see Canalopolis, the city Darrien had taken over and made the headquarters for his empire.
He started to walk.
After about fifteen minutes he saw his first sign of life—a guard, in the grey-and-red uniform of Darrien’s men, pacing back and forth in the sand outside Canalopolis. He was an Earthman. He wore the leather harness that marked the renegade. Archman’s lips pursed coldly as he watched the Earthman pace to and fro. Cautiously the Intelligence agent edged up on the renegade. He couldn’t use his zam-gun; he needed the renegade’s uniform. It would have to be a surprise attack.