ce, she was whipping around into an alley.

He watched her go, sick inside, and the last he saw was the hand she
held up, waving the little black book at him!

He turned back into the liquor shop; the woman seemed to read his face.
"I should have watched her. It is a bad day for me, young man. I failed
Pappa; I failed the poor man who died--and now I have failed you. It is
better..."

He caught her as she fell toward him. She relaxed after a second.
"Upstairs, please," she whispered, "beside Pappa. There was nothing
else. And these Martian poisons--they are so sure, they don't hurt. Five
minutes more, I think. Stay with me, I'll tell you how Pappa and I got
married. I want somebody should know how it was with us once, together."

He stayed, then picked the two bodies up and moved them from the floor
onto the bed where he had first seen the old man. He moved Murdoch's
body aside, and covered the two gently. Finally, he went down the
stairs, carrying Murdoch with him. The man's weight was a stiff load,
even on Mars; but, somehow, he couldn't leave his body with the old
couple.

He stopped finally ten blocks of narrow alleys away, and put Murdoch
down.

Now he had no witnesses, except Sheila Corey. He had no book, no clues
as to whom to see and what to do.

He heard the sound of a mobile amplifier, and strained his ears toward
it. He got enough to know that Wayne had won a thumping victory, better
than three to two.

Isaiah Trench was still captain of the Seventh Precinct.

Chapter IX

CONTRABAND

Elections were over, but the few dim lights along the street showed only
boarded-up and darkened buildings. There were sounds of stirring, but no
one was trusting that the election-day brawls were completely ended yet.

Gordon hesitated, then swung glumly toward a corner where he could find
a police call box. He heard a tiny patrol car turn the corner and ducked
back into another alley to wait for it to go by. But they weren't
looking for him. Their spotlight caught a running boy, clutching a few
thin copies of the _Crusader_ under a scrawny arm.

After the cops had dumped the unconscious kid into the back of the small
squad car, and gone looking for more game, Gordon went over to look at
the tattered scraps left of the opposition paper.

Randolph wasn't preaching this time, but was content to report the facts
he'd seen. There had been at least ninety known killings; mobs had
fought citizens outside the