The Kiddie bobbed his head, and from the manner in which his luminiferous glands sparkled balefully, it was evident where he thought MacCauley should go. Nevertheless, he snapped out his little pad and stylus, and scrawled: "Commi wih me tu Offic he wil arange arest."
MacCauley deciphered the scribble. He shrugged and said, "Okay. Hop to it, sonny." He walked beside the diminutive policeman for a few hundred feet, glancing incuriously at the small burrows which pierced the rock walls and kicking away chunks of the queer, spongy rock on which the Kiddies subsisted, the equivalent of Earthly garbage.
He should have thought of the cops before, he realized. The Kiddies, as a race, were not numerous, and he could probably bully them into finding the thief and recovering his money. After all, why not?
He soon found out. The lolling half-breed Venusian interpreter who loafed around the ratty, worm-infested police station heard his complaint and deftly translated it for the benefit of a moth-eaten Kiddie who seemed to be as much in charge here as anyone else. MacCauley drew an easy breath, his first in two hours, and then—
The interpreter sing-songed, "Forty Earth-dollars, please. Filing fee."
MacCauley's eyes narrowed. The old squeeze play. "Don't be a sap," he said flatly, his thin lips tight against his teeth. "I haven't got forty cents. That little louse took everything that was in my pocket."
The Venusian smirked, and regarded his greenish, webbed hand with great interest. "That is very bad, my friend," he said, and flicked a flea from a fold in the skin of his wrinkled wrist. "Here on Pallas we have a law; the citizens must be protected. When a foreigner makes an accusation against a citizen, it is quite possible that he is wrong, and a great injustice will have been done. As you know, there is only one way to soothe a Palladian ... money."
MacCauley cursed bitterly, harsh, biting oaths. "All right," he said then, forcing his tone to evenness. "I'll sign a guarantee of the money. When you catch this pickpocket, you'll reclaim the money; then I'll put up the bond pending trial."
By great effort the interpreter managed to look shocked. "That is absurd. You must pay now; if the Palladian is innocent, he will not have the money. No, it is impossible."
"If he's innocent it'll be because you caught the wrong guy. Why, by all the Plutonian Ice Devils, should I have to pay for your mistake?"