"It's easy enough, and you'll get plenty of credit in the fund for it. I
need two men who can keep their mouths shut."

They idled around the station through the morning. In the late
afternoon, they left in a big truck capable of hauling what would have
been fifty tons on Earth. Trench drove. Outside the dome, the electric
motor carried them along at a steady twenty miles an hour, almost
silently.

It was Gordon's first look at the real Mars. He saw small villages where
crop prospectors and hydroponic farmers lived, with a few small
industrial sections scattered over the desert. As they moved out, he saw
the slow change from the beaten appearance of Marsport to something that
seemed no worse than would be found among the share-croppers back on
Earth. It was obvious that Marsport was the poison center here.

Some of the younger children were running around without helmets,
confirming Praeger's claim that third-generation Martians somehow
learned to adapt to the atmosphere.

Darkness fell sharply, as it always did in Mars' thin air, but they went
on, heading out into the dunes of the desert. When they finally stopped,
they were beside a small, battered space ship. Boxes were piled all
around it, and others were being tossed out. Trent leaped from the
truck, motioning them to follow, and they began loading the crates
hastily. It took about an hour of hard work to load the last of them,
and Trench was working harder than they were. Finished, he went up to
one of the men from the ship, handed over an envelope, and came back to
start the truck back toward Marsport. As the dunes dwindled behind them,
Gordon could see the brief flare of the little rocket taking off.

They drove back through the night as rapidly as the truck could manage.
Finally, they rolled into City Hall, down a ramp, and onto an elevator
that took them three levels down. Trench climbed out and nodded in
satisfaction. "That's it. Take tomorrow off, if you want, and I'll fix
credit for you. But just remember you haven't seen anything. You don't
know any more than our old friend Murdoch!"

He led them to another elevator, then swung back to the truck.

"Guns," Gordon said slowly. "Guns and contraband ammunition for the
administration from Earth. And they must have paid half the graft
they've taken for that. What the hell do they want it for?"

Izzy jerked a shoulder upwards and a twist ran across his pock-marked
face. "War, what else? Gov'nor, Earth mus