I tried to figure the thing out sensibly, tried to weigh his good points against his bad. But it all came back to the same thing. A guy who would deliberately go to sleep on Boiler Watch with a ton of uranium ready to blast a barracks to smithereens if it wasn't watched, would deliberately do just about anything.
Sending me off on a wild goose chase after a character named Joe may have been a gag. But it may have been something a little grimmer than a gag, and I made up my mind to be extremely careful from here on in.
The guide arrived at fifteen hundred on the dot. He was tall, elongated, looked almost like all the other Venusians I'd seen so far.
"I understand you need a Grade A guide, sir," he said.
"Are you familiar with the jungle?" I asked him.
"Born and raised there, sir. Know it like the back of my hand."
"Has Joe told you what the payment will be?"
"Yes, sir. A carton and a half of cigarettes."
I thought about Joe deducting his commission and smiled.
"When can we leave?"