"What do you want?" Jansen asked.
"I don't get you, mister. You stopped me, I didn't stop you. What do you want?"
"You were following me," Jansen said.
"I never saw you before in my life."
Before Jansen could answer, the sun went down. It did not set, as the sun sets on Earth. It disappeared, due to the sudden unpredictable wobbles of Mercury's twilight zone. It was an astronomical phenomena. And, despite the sun's great apparent size, Jansen suddenly found himself in pitch darkness. It alarmed him at first, until he realized that Mercury had no atmosphere, except for the artificial pockets under the man-made domes. There was no layer of air to retain the sun's glow. One moment, dazzling light; the next, almost total darkness.
"Where are you?" Jansen called. He groped his way toward where the man had been standing. He heard a girl's laughter on the street nearby, heard an old woman's shout.
Something struck the side of his head, summoning blinding pain. Jansen staggered and fell to the sidewalk on hands and knees. He felt himself being frisked expertly in his half-conscious state. Something was removed from his trouser-pocket: his wallet probably. He tried to get up but fell forward, scraping his jaw. He heard retreating footsteps.
Number one botch-job, he thought, and lost consciousness.
When he came to, he was not alone. He was no longer on the sidewalk, either. He had been taken into a house.