She shrank back a little. Strangely, he felt that the fear in her eyes was more of him than of the cut-throats in Quong Kee's. Her face acquired a faint touch of color.
"I told him," she said, "that I'd take away his neoin ration card."
She pulled loose and disappeared into the other room.
Barnard stared at the drapes and grinned a little at the evasive answer. What had she told the fiend? If he knew, it might help him to get some news. And what was she doing here in this dive—he'd swear she wasn't the type!
He thought of the boss back on Earth thundering through the news room as Barnard's meager despatches dribbled through. But Hell! He'd done all any human could possibly do! He'd spoken with officials and spacemen and scientists, poked his skinny nose into dens like this where a man risked his life if he so much as thought out of line. He'd even bought some of the drug from the peddlers who operated almost openly, and he'd cultivated them, but they were only tools.
The higher-ups might have been invisible for all anybody knew about them. Nobody even knew where the drug came from. But wherever it originated, it was swiftly corrupting Mars and Venus, as well as the Jovian system and the asteroid belt.
When small quantities appeared on Earth, the powers-that-be of the System News Service smelled news. Ron Barnard, star reporter who had unveiled many a scandal in gay twenty-third century New York, was sent to investigate. And Ron Barnard stood in Mars' wildest dive, scratching his head and staring after a frightened, pretty girl.
"That's my sister," said a childish voice beside him.
Barnard stared at the big man beside him. The man was a splendid physical specimen, but his face—