"Take me to the Hotel de Mars," he told the driver. He leaned back comfortably, gloved hands resting on the head of his cane while he looked around him. A strange, glass-domed city, set in the heart of Mars' desert wastelands. A thriving city, with low buildings touching the glass roof of the dome.
The rain-maker went on, the first drops splattering down from the overhead sprinkler system. Unterzuyder cringed.
"Driver, driver!" he cried, rapping smartly with his cane. "Do you want me to catch my death?"
The driver hurriedly caused the separate halves of the glassteel cupola to fold over the car. Unterzuyder settled back injuredly.
At the registration desk of the Hotel de Mars, he asked for, and was shown to the room of, Mr. Nathaniel and Miss Fayette Beecher. The door was thrown open by a tanned blonde girl in smart gray jodhpurs and slick boots.
Her face at first registered a nervousness. Then it smoothed.
"Oh!" she sang out, blue eyes widening and taking him in from head to toe. "You must be Mr. Straley." She cocked her lively face cutely to one side. "Are you?"
Unterzuyder's heart banged. He bit his lip. This was exactly the kind of girl his dead mother warned him to stay away from. Coquettish. Sexy. Treacherous, like most females. And he had lately noticed, to his dismay, that he, an Unterzuyder, was becoming far too susceptible to such unhealthy influences.
"I am Mr. Straley," he said coldly. "Carruthers Straley, founder of Titan Settlers, Ltd. Shall I come in?"