The Thing of Venus

On far-off steaming Venus, three Earthlings faced awful death. And the only man who could save them from the veiled planet's unknown THING was Kenton—disgraced, dope-sodden ex-Space Patrolman.
The gailang gas hung in low soft waves over the motley crowd of the tiny, hidden gailang den. Laughter rose hysterically from the trio of women slummers, as the gas tore their natural reserves and modesty into shreds. A scarred space-pirate drooled over a handful of Martian moon-diamonds, the disruptor gun handy to his gnarled fist. The gas-tender, his flat nose buried in a tiny mask, watched the crowd of inscrutable eyes, his hands flickering, now and then, over the pet-cock studded panel before him.
Val Kenton lolled back in his padded booth, his eyes glazed with the drugging gas, his right hand fumbling aimlessly at the pipe resting on the battered table. His face was slack and whiskered, but even two months of lying drugged could not take the firmness from his mouth or the squareness from his jaw.
He didn't see the two men wearing the blue uniforms of the S.P. come in, nor did he feel their heavy hands as they lifted him between them. He was smiling slightly in his sleep, his subconscious completely concerned with a Martian dancing flower, when the two men tossed him into the rear seat of a cruiser and sent it speeding toward the grim forbidding walls of the S.P.'s prison.
Val Kenton came to with the acrid bite of neutralizing gas twisting his stomach in violent nausea. He retched, turned on his side, reaching automatically for the gas-pipe. His hand encountered nothing, and he opened dazed eyes, stared uncomprehendingly around.
Leave me alone! he snarled, I paid your bloody money for a private booth!
A heavy palm smashed across his face, brought him, raging, to his feet. He lashed out with both hands, felt a grip of steel on his shoulder whirl him and throw him back to the laced-steel bunk.
Sober up, Kenton, a hard voice snapped, I haven't got time to waste.