"I ... I love my brother, but this has gone beyond personalities now. This is plague, wholesale murder; all Mars is at stake."
Jimmy Starr made an instant decision. "Where will I meet you?" he said.
She considered. Then, "You'll find instructions at the Canal Grand entrance. Good luck, Jimmy."
Half an hour later Jimmy climbed out of a tube-cage and emerged onto a deserted square at the outskirts of Crater City. Before him, dim in the overhead light, a sign read:
THE CANALS
POSITIVELY NO TRESPASSING
ENTER AT YOUR OWN RISK
Before the sign stood a small kiosk with dusty bulletins tacked upon it. Jimmy waited impatiently, pacing to and fro. Then his eye caught sight of a small envelope protruding from a crevice on the kiosk wall. It bore no name or address, but upon its surface was the design of the Constellation Orion.
Inside, a scrap of paper bore the written words: "Canal Grand—south. Way Station X. I'll meet you there."
He pursed his lips. What kind of a game was this? Unseen speakers on the visiphone. Mysterious messages directing him into the unknown. It smacked of a twentieth century thriller.
All his inherent sense of danger warned him to turn back. In answer, that haunting voice rang again in his ears: "Good luck, Jimmy."