"Well, can I go take a look, then?"
The old man studied him with surprise. Apparently gold-bricking and not eager-beavering was the order of the day here. "What's your rating?" the orderly asked.
"Twelve."
"Well, nobody would push you around, I guess," admitted the barracks orderly with grudging respect. "Why don't you see the town, though? Town's all right. Don't go out to the bogs unless you have to."
Bogs, thought Jansen. Bogs on Mercury's sun-side. He still couldn't get over it.
Jansen changed into a skin-tight white insulsuit and went outside. The insulsuit covered him almost like an additional layer of skin: he wore trousers and a shirt over it. Without the insulsuit, exposure this close to Mercury's sun-side would be impossible for more than a few moments.
It took Jansen twenty minutes to realize he was being followed. His tail wore an insulsuit and a pair of colorful shorts. This seemed to be the universal garb in Sun-side City, so that the hundreds of loungers and shoppers all looked alike, with the skull-cap cowls of their insulsuits even hiding the distinctiveness of their hair. Jansen's tail was a man bigger than most, though, and it was only because he was wandering aimlessly in the sun-dazzled streets that Jansen became aware of pursuit at all.
He ducked into an alley between two cafes. Two women in skin-tight insulsuits came by, then a man and a boy, then the big man who had been following Jansen. Abruptly Jansen stepped from the alley.
"Just a minute," he said.
The man whirled, a blank expression on his face.