I began to notice something, then. There were quite a lot of men in the place. At first glance they looked okay—a hard-faced, muscular bunch of miners in dirty shirts and high boots.
Then I looked at their hands. They were dirty enough. But they never did any work in a mine, on Venus or anywhere else.
The place was awfully quiet, for that kind of a place. The bartender was a big pot-bellied swamp-edger with pale eyes and thick white hair coiled up on top of his bullet head. He was not happy.
I leaned on the bar. "Lhak," I said. He poured it, sullenly, out of a green bottle. I reached for it, casually.
"That guy we brought in," I said. "He sure has a skinful. Passed out cold. What's he been spiking his drinks with?"
"Selak," said a voice in my ear. "As if you didn't know."
I turned. The man who had given Kapper the cigarette was standing behind me. And I remembered him, then.
Circus people get around a lot, and the Law supplies us with Wanted sheets. I remembered this guy from the last batch they handed us on Mars. Melak Thompson was his name, and he had a reputation.
He had a face you wouldn't forget. Dark and kind of handsome, with the Dry-lander blood showing in the heavy bones and the tilted green eyes. His mouth was smiling and brutal. He nodded at the booth.