Tepondicon

He was not the savior-type. He certainly did not crave martyrdom. Yet there was treasure beyond price in these darkened plague-cities of Ganymede, if a man could but measure up to it.
By seven o'clock, Earth-time, I could distinctly see the first plague city of Profaldo. In the grey light it lay there before me, a vague opalescent aura radiating from its spires and minarets. The three roads that crossed the flat converged on the city to meet at a single narrow runway.
I drove the tracto-car down into a little gully, climbed out and took a second look through my magnoscope. The flat was deserted, as it well should be at this hour, and the only sign of life was a high-flying tok , circling slowly.
It took me only five minutes to make preparations for my entrance into Profaldo. The carefully wound coil of volocized wire slipped down neatly under my tunic. Suspended from my left shoulder was a haversack, innocent appearing, but containing one of the seven transmitting sets, also a complete set of tools. I removed three of the white pellets from the little glass vial in my pocket and swallowed them. And, for emergency, I slid a heat pistol into another pocket.
Then I set out across the flat. Distance was deceptive, but I had calculated fairly closely, and an hour later saw me pacing up the runway to the entrance of Profaldo.
The guard in the cubicle stared when I stood before him. You're not a citizen here, he said. Do you know what place this is?
I know very well, I said. Here are my papers, signed by the High Ganymedian Council. Let me pass, please.
The gate slid back, and an instant later I was inside the city.
Profaldo! Plague-ridden, feared, legendary! Like its six sister cities, the place was known throughout the System as a pest-hole, tenanted by doomed citizenry whose very futility of life made a mockery of everything decent and law-abiding.
Twenty yards down the street, and I saw indeed that the city was one vast slum. Gambling holes-in-the-wall stood cheek by jowl with sinister drink shops, all of them roaring full blast. A drooling fog that dimmed the intermittent blue street lights gave a grotesque unreality to the thoroughfare.