block,
especially built to cater to the tourist trade from Earth, was
Earth-conditioned inside. Its gravitation, air pressure and humidity
were ingeniously maintained at Earth standards for the greater comfort
of its patrons.

Kenniston felt oddly oppressed by the warm, soft air inside the
resplendent lobby. He had spent so much of his time away from Earth
that he had become more or less adapted to thinner, colder
atmospheres.

"Miss Gloria Loring?" repeated the immaculate young Earthman behind
the information desk. His eyes appraised Kenniston's shabby
space-jacket and the hulking green Jovian. "I am afraid--"

"I'm here to see her on important business, by appointment," Kenniston
snapped.

The clerk melted at once. "Oh, I see! I believe that Miss Loring's
party is now in The Bridge. That's our cocktail room--top floor."

Kenniston felt badly out of place, riding up in the magnetic lift with
Holk Or. The other people in the car, Earthmen and women in the
shimmering synthesilks of the latest formal dress, stared at him and
the Jovian as though wondering how they had ever gained admittance.

The lights, silks and perfumes made Kenniston feel even shabbier than
he was. All this luxury was a far cry from the hard, dangerous life he
had led for so long amid the wild asteroids and moons of the outer
planets.

It was worse up in the glittering cocktail room atop the hotel. The place
had glassite walls and ceiling, and was designed to give an impression of
the navigating bridge of a space-ship. The orchestra played behind a phony
control-board of instruments and rocket-controls. Meaningless space-charts
hung on the walls for decoration. It was just the sort of pretentious
sham, Kenniston thought contemptuously, to appeal to tourists.

"Some crowd!" muttered Holk Or, looking over the tables of richly
dressed and jewelled people. His small eyes gleamed. "What a place to
loot!"

"Shut up!" Kenniston muttered hastily. He asked a waiter for the
Loring party, and was conducted to a table in a corner.

There were a half dozen people at the table, most of them young
Earthmen and girls. They were drinking pink Martian desert-wine,
except for one sulky-looking youngster who had stuck to Earth whisky.

One of the girls turned and looked at Kenniston with cool, insolently
uninterested gaze when the waiter whispered to her politely.

"I'm Gloria Loring," she drawled. "What did you want to see me about?"

She was dark and s