the deep shadows where the tables
were, resting briefly on each drunken, greedy or fear-ridden face.

It was an old process with Mytor, nearly automatic. A glance told him
enough, the state of a man's mind and senses and wallet. This
trembling wreck, staring at the woman and nursing a glass of the
cheapest green Yarotian wine, had spent his last silver. Mytor would
have him thrown out. Another, head down and muttering over a tumbler
of raw whiskey, would pass out before the night was over, and wake in
an alley blocks away, with his gold in Mytor's pocket. A third wanted
a woman, and Mytor knew what kind of a woman.

When the dance was nearly over Mytor heaved out of his chair, drew the
rich folds of his native Venusian tarab about his bulk, and padded
softly to a corner of the room, where the shadows lay deepest.
Smiling, he rested a moist, jeweled paw on the table at which Ransome,
the Earthman, sat alone.

Blue eyes looked up coldly out of a weary, lean face. The voice was
bored.

"I've paid for my bottle and I have nothing left for you to steal. We
have nothing in common, no business together. Now, if you don't mind,
you're in my line of vision, and I'd like to watch the finish of the
dance."

The fat Venusian's smile only broadened.

"May I sit down, Mr. Ransome?" he persisted. "Here, out of your line
of vision?"

"The chair belongs to you," Ransome observed flatly.

"Thank you."

Covertly, as he had done for hours now, Mytor studied the gaunt, pale
Earthman in the worn space harness. Ransome had apparently dismissed
the Venusian renegade already, and his cold blue eyes followed the
woman's every movement with fixed intensity.

The music swept on toward its climax and the woman's body was a storm
of golden flesh and tossing black hair. Mytor saw the Earthman's pale
lips twist in the faint suggestion of a bitter smile, saw the long
fingers tighten around the glass.

Every man had his price on Yaroto, and Ransome would not be the first
Mytor had bought with a woman. For a moment, Mytor watched the desire
brighten in Ransome's eyes, studied the smile that some men wear on
the way to death, in the last moment when life is most precious.

* * * * *

In this moment Ransome was for sale. And Mytor had a proposition.

"You were not surprised that I knew your name, Mr. Ransome?"

"Let's say that I wasn't interested."

Mytor flushed but Ransome was looking past him at the w