John Thorn took a long, green cigarette of Martian rail leaf from his pocket and scratched its tip against the wall, thus igniting it. As he puffed on it, Thorn spoke under his breath.
"Get ready, boys — here comes our shadow, if my guess is right."
Neither the grinning, bald Venusian nor the big Mercurian changed expression. But their hands casually dropped to the side of their jackets, where atom-pistols bulged their pockets.
A man in the gray uniform of a noncom of the Earth Navy was shouldering toward them out of the passing throng. He was a middle-aged man with a flat, grizzled face.
"Can you spare a smoke, sailor?” he asked Thorn.
"Of course,” John Thorn answered calmly, and fished one of the green cigarettes from his pocket. He kept his face bent as he handed it over.
"Thanks,” muttered the man, and was gone in the throng.
"A false alarm, after all,” grunted Gunner Welk.
"No,” clipped Thorn. “I know that man. He was one of my non-coms before I deserted the Navy. He knows I'm John Thorn, which means that he knows we're the Planeteers. He's gone for the police."
Thorn's gaze swiveled rapidly. Then he pushed his companions toward the swinging door of the vibration-joint.