Its light fell full on the face of Zoltan Prenzz.
CHAPTER III
SQUEEZE PLAY
Prenzz was very dead.
That was self-evident, without examination. No stench such as permeated this room ever could have come from living tissue.
The odor grew worse by the moment. While Ross stared, his face a mask of numb, horrified disbelief, the corpse took on a strangely oozy look. Inside its clothes, the body began to lose its contours. Flesh sloughed from one cheek, then the other, as if putrefaction were somehow here motivated to race to destroy the evidence of crime.
Shuddering, Ross flicked his light off, stumbled back to the door, and retched. He was still shaking his head as if to clear his nostrils of the cramped room's stench as he plunged into the shadows of the nearest alley.
For a moment, there, he paused and stood frowning. Then, narrow-eyed, he fumbled through his tunic's pocket and came out with a now-familiar note-sheet ... unfolded it ... stared down at the name and address it bore: Veta Hall, 417D Esrach Unit.
Folding the note-sheet again, Ross strode on through the alley to the next street, climbed into the first vacant transor, and punched the Esrach Unit button on the selector panel.