"That was only the beginning. The second is this. Do not, under any circumstances, make any attempt to investigate that accident of yours."
"Now look," snapped Farradyne hotly, "I've spent four years—"
"In the first place, nothing that you could possibly do would convince anybody that you were the innocent bystander. So—"
"But I'm telling you—"
"The game you are going to play will not permit you to make any attempt to clear up that mess. As a character of questionable background, your attitude must be that of a man caught in a bad show and forced to undergo visible suffering long enough for the public to forget, before you can resume your role of professional louse. Got this straight?"
Farradyne looked at Clevis, gaunt has-been looking at success. The window was dark now, but there were no stars visible from the surface of Venus, only Terra and Jupiter and Sirius and Vega and a couple of others that haloed through the haze. The call of the free blackness of space pulled at Farradyne. He turned back from the window and looked at the unmade bed, the insect-specked wall, the scarred dresser, the warped floor. His nose wrinkled tentatively and he cursed inwardly because he knew that the joint reeked of rancid sweat and mildewed cloth and unwashed human body, and his nose was so accustomed to this stink that he could not smell it.
Farradyne came to understand in those few moments while Clevis watched him quietly, waiting for his decision, that his oft-repeated statement that there were some things that even a bum wouldn't do was so much malarkey. Farradyne would have joined the hellblossom operators for an opportunity to get out of this Venusian mire. He turned to Clevis.
"Let's go," he said.
Clevis cast a pointed look at the dresser.
"There's nothing in the place but bad memories," said Farradyne. "I'll leave 'em here. Good, bad or indifferent, Clevis, I'm your man no matter how you want it played. For the first time in years I seem to want a bath and a clean shirt."