CHAPTER 13
"Atom City rocket liner now loading on Ramp Two!"
The metallic voice of the dispatcher echoed through the waiting room of the subspaceport on the outskirts of Marsport and the passengers began moving toward the field gate, where the stewards of the ship checked each ticket against the liner's seating plan. Near them, a squad of four Space Marines scrutinized all passengers carefully as they boarded the waiting jet cars that would take them to the ship far out in the middle of the field.
Tom Corbett sat at the refreshment stand in the waiting room, sipping a glass of milk thoughtfully and eying the squad of Space Marines. He wore a big-billed hat pulled low over his face and a tight-fitting black jacket, the standard uniform of a merchant spaceman.
"Anything else?" asked the pretty waitress behind the counter.
"Yeah," growled Tom. "Gimme another glass of milk and another of these crummy sandwiches."
"Well, you don't have to be rude about it!" snapped the girl. "Somebody should teach you space tramps some manners!"
As she flounced off angrily the young cadet smiled. He knew his disguise must be good indeed to fool this young girl, who met hundreds of people at the spaceport every day and could easily recognize a person for what he truly was. Now his only hope was that the disguise would fool the squad of Marines at the gate.
After having abandoned the jet truck, Tom had moved through the glittering city of Marsport carefully, keeping to the dark alleys and shadows. Gradually he had worked his way back to the area around Sloppy Sam's where, for a few credits, he had been able to buy a merchant spaceman's clothes with no questions asked. He buried his cadet uniform in the loose ground near a construction project.
Then, staying in the area, he wandered in and out of the dingy bars and restaurants looking for the man he had seen at the spaceport, the driver of the truck that had crashed the fence.