Curt Varga straightened, feigning anger. "Listen," he said coldly, "I don't know you, so beat it!"
The agent at the table opened his hand; a small shield glowed dully in the palm. "What's your number, Earthman?" he asked heavily.
The Falcon shrugged, held out his wrist. The agent standing beside the table lifted a pocket fluorscope tube, trained it on the exposed wrist. The flesh seemed to dissolve, and numbers glowed bluely from the ulna bone.
"X three five one four eight L T," the agent read impersonally. He twitched off the fluorscope beam; the flesh magically came back into being. The second agent spoke the numerals and letters into a pocket vocoder.
"Hell," the Falcon said, "why didn't you tell me you were IP men? I haven't done anything wrong!"
"Who are you, and why the gun?"
Curt Varga shrugged. "I'm a scavenger, just in for a couple of days. I always carry a gun; I've got a permit from the IP here on Mars." He dry-washed his hands nervously. "Look, I don't want any trouble; I'll help any way I can, if you'll tell me what you want."
"Shut up!" the seated agent said brittlely, listened to the tinny voice coming from his vocoder. Then he pocketed the tiny unit, stood slowly. "Your numbers check," he said slowly. "But don't leave this place without my permission."
Without another word, he and his partner walked back to the bar. Curt Varga sat silently for a moment, feeling the cold sweat on his spine, breathing a bit fast. He grinned slightly, mockingly, remembering the hours of pain that had been his when the surgeons of his hidden base had grafted the ulna of a slain Earthman into his arm after removing the natural bone. Unconsciously, his right hand lifted, and the forefinger traced the invisible scars left on his face by the surgeon whose plastic surgery had changed the shape of his features.
"I think I passed all right, Val," he said into the microphone imbedded in the cartilage of his throat. "Take it easy."