shoulder and walking fast. His pockets, I noted, were bulging. So I went out the back door, cut down the serviceway to the next radius street, and flagged a cab.

"Where to, mister?" the jockey said.

"The strip—and hurry."

The jockey fed propane to the turbine and we took off like a scorched zarth. "Left or right?" he asked as the strip leaped at us. I crossed my fingers, estimated the speed of Redman's walk, and said, "Right."

We took the corner on two of our three wheels and there was Redman, walking fast toward the south airlock, and behind him, half-running, came two of Abie's goons.

"Slow down—fast!" I yapped, and was crushed against the back of the front seat as the jock slammed his foot on the brakes. "In here!" I yelled at Redman as I swung the rear door open.

His reflexes were good. He hit the floor in a flat dive as the purple streak of a stat blast flashed through the space where he had been. The jockey needed no further stimulation. He slammed his foot down and we took off with a screech of polyprene, whipped around the next corner and headed for the hub, the cops, and safety.

"Figured you was jerking some guy, Cyril," the jockey said over his shoulder. "But who is he?"

Redman picked himself off the floor as I swore under my breath. The jockey would have to know me. Abie'd hear of my part in this by morning and my hide wouldn't be worth the price of a mangy rat skin. I had to get out of town—fast! And put plenty of distance between me and Marsport. This dome—this planet—wasn't going to be healthy for quite a while. Abie was the most unforgiving man I knew where money was concerned, and if the large, coarse notes dripping from Redman's pockets were any indication, there was lots of money concerned.

"Where to now, Cyril?" the jockey asked.

There was only one place to go. I damned the greed that made me pick Redman up. I figured that he'd be grateful to the tune of a couple of kilomunits but what was a couple of thousand if Abie thought I was mixed up in this? Lucky I had a spaceship even if she was an unconverted Centaurian. I could stand the cramped quarters a lot better than I could take a session in Abie's back room. I'd seen what happened to guys who went in there, and it wasn't pretty. "To the spaceport," I said, "and don't spare the hydrocarbons."

"Gotcha!" the jock said and the whine of the turbine increased another ten decibels.

"Thanks, Wallingford," Redman said. "If you hadn't pulled me out I'd have had to shoot somebody. And I don't like killing. It brings too many lawmen into the picture." He was as cool as ice. I had to admire his nerve.

"Thanks for nothing," I said. "I figured you'd be grateful in a more solid manner."

"Like this?" he thrust a handful of bills at me. There must have been four thousand in that wad. It cheered me up a little.

"Tell me where you want to get off," I said.

"You said you have a spaceship," he countered.

"I do, but it's a Centaurian job. I might be able to squeeze into it but I doubt if you could. About the only spot big enough for you would be the cargo hold, and the radiation'd fry you before we even made Venus."

He grinned at me. "I'll take the chance," he said.

"Okay, sucker," I thought. "You've been warned." If he came along he'd damn well go in the hold. I could cut the drives after we got clear of Mars and dump him out—after removing his money, of course. "Well," I said aloud, "it's your funeral."

"You're always saying that," he said with chuckle in his voice.

We checked out at the airlock and drove out to the spaceport over the sand-filled roadbed that no amount of work ever kept clean. We cleared the port office, drew spacesuits from Post Supply, and went out to my yacht. Redman looked at her, his heart in his eyes. He seemed overwhelmed by it.

"Lord! she's beautiful!" he breathed, as he looked at the slim polished length standing on her broad fins,