ght would be
given over to carousing; for these six hours the Street of the Sailors
came to life. It was a time to keep strictly in hiding.

In the middle of that night, when the pleasures of Porno were in full
stride, there emerged suddenly, from one of the dark, crooked byways
that angled off the Street of the Sailors, a squad of five men whose
disciplined pace and regular formation were in marked contrast to the
confusion around them. They were slant-eyed men, with smooth saffron
faces, and strongly built, and they were armed, each one, with both a
ray-gun and a two-foot black, pointed tube. But it was not their
numbers, formation or weapons that caused the carousing crowd to fall
silent and hastily get out of their path. It was, rather, the insignia
embroidered on the breasts of the gray smocks they wore. The insignia
represented an asteroid in a circle of the ten planets, and the Street
of Sailors knew that sign and dreaded it.

The squad pressed along rapidly. A still-comely woman, new to Porno,
plucked smirking at the leader's sleeve; but his pace did not slacken,
and she fell back, puzzled and afraid because of her feeling of
something lifeless, dumb, machinelike in the man. Ahead, an
isuan-maddened Earthling fell foul of a Venusian; a circle cleared in
the mob, a ray-gun spat and missed, and the Venusian closed, the gleam
of a skewer-blade playing around him. This was combat; this was
interesting; but none of the squad's five men gave the fight a glance,
or even turned his head when, as they passed, the butchered Earthling
coughed out his life.

* * * * *

So they passed, and soon they were gone down another black-throated
byway.

They padded noiselessly along in the darkness to turn again presently,
pausing finally before a low, steel-walled house, typical of the
strongholds of prudent merchants of the port. No lights were visible
within it; all seemed asleep.

Silence filled the narrow street, and unrelieved darkness. Occasionally
a desultory breeze brought sounds of a burst of revelry from the Street
of the Sailors; once the ports of an outbound space-ship flashed
overhead for an instant. But there was mainly silence and darkness, and
in it the five men, parleying close together in toneless whispers.

After a little they separated. On cat's feet four of them stole around
the sides of the house. The fifth, drawing the black, pointed tube from
his slash, crept