Chapter 2

Colonel Halsey sat at his desk, with a few papers before him and a bank of instrument controls at his elbow. He pushed his audiphone and mirror-grid to one side.

“Sit down, please.” He gave us each the benefit of a welcoming smile, and his gaze finished upon Anita.

“I came because you sent for Venza,” Anita said quickly. “Please, Colonel Halsey, let me stay. I thought, whatever you want her for, you might need me, too.”

“Quite so, Miss Prince. Perhaps I shall.” It seemed that in his mind were many of the thoughts thronging my own, for he added: “Haljan, I recall I sent for you like this once before. I hope this may be a more auspicious occasion.”

“So do I, sir.”

Snap said, “We’ve been afraid hardly to do more than a whisper. But you’re insulated here, and we’re mighty curious.”

Halsey nodded. “I can talk freely to you, and yet I cannot.” His gaze went to Venza. “It is you in whom I am most interested.”

“Me? You flatter me, Colonel Halsey.” She sat gracefully reclining in the metal chair before his desk, seeming small as a child between its big, broad arms. Her long gray skirt had parted to display her shapely, gray-satined legs. She had thrown off the hood of her cloak. Her thick black hair was coiled in a knot low at the back of her neck; her carmine lips bore an alluring smile. It was all instinctive. To this girl from Venus it came as naturally as she breathed.

Halsey’s gray eyes twinkled. “Do not look at me quite like that, Miss Venza, or I shall forget what I have to say. You would get the better of me; I’m glad you’re not a criminal.”

“So am I,” she declared. “What can I do for you, Colonel Halsey?”

His smile faded at once. His glance included us all. “Just this. There is a man here in Greater New York, a Martian whom they call Set Molo. He has a younger sister, Setta Meka. Have any of you heard of them?”

We had not. Halsey went on, slowly now, apparently choosing his words with the greatest care. “There are things that I can tell you and there are things that I cannot.”

“Why not?” asked Venza.

“My dear, for one thing, if you are going to help me you can do it best by not knowing too much. For another, I have my orders; this thing concerns the very highest authorities, not only of the U.S.W., but in Ferrok-Shahn and Grebhar too.”

He paused, but none of us spoke. Then Halsey said quietly, “Well, this Martian and his sister are here now in Greater New York. They have some secret. They are engaged in some activity, and I want to find out what it is. I have picked up only little parts of it.”

He stopped; and out of the silence Snap said, “If you don’t mind, Colonel Halsey, it seems to me you are mostly talking in code.”

“I’m not, but I’m trying to tell you as little as possible. You, Miss Venza, need only understand this: the Martian, Molo, must be induced to give you some idea of what he is doing here.”

“And I am to induce him?” Venza asked calmly.

“That is my idea.” The faint shadow of a smile swept Halsey’s thin, intent face. “My dear, you are a girl of Venus. More than that, you have far more than your normal share of wits and brains.”

It did not make Venza smile. She sat tense now, with her dark-eyed gaze fastened on Halsey’s face. Anita, equally breathless, reached over and gripped her hand.

Then Venza said slowly, “I realize, Colonel Halsey, that this is something vital.”

“As vital, my child, as it could be.” He drew a long breath. “I want you to understand I am doing my duty. Doing, what seems the best thing, not for you, perhaps, but for the world.”

I seemed to see into his mind at that moment. He might have been a father, sending a daughter into danger.

“I need not disguise the danger. I have lost a dozen men.” He lighted a cigarette. “I don’t seem to be able to frighten you?”

“No,” she said. And I heard Anita murmur, “Oh, Venza!”

“But you frighten me,” said Snap. “Colonel, look here; you know I’m going to marry this girl very soon.”

“Yes, I know. You’ll have to consider this a sacrifice, a voluntary descent into danger, for a great cause in a great crisis. You four have just come out of a very considerable danger. We know of what stuff you are made, all of you.”

He smiled again. “Perhaps that prominence is unfortunate for you, but let me settle it now. Is there any one of you who will not take my orders and trust my judgement of what is best? And do it, if need be, blindly? Will you offer yourselves to me?”

We gazed at each other. Both the girls instantly murmured, “Yes.”

“Yes,” I said at last. It was not too hard for me, for I thought I was yielding him Venza, not Anita.

Snap was very pale. He stared from one to the other of us.

“Yes,” he said finally. “But Colonel, surely you can tell us more.”

Halsey tossed his cigarette away. “I will tell you as much as I think best. These Martians, Molo and his sister, do not know of Venza; at least, I think that they do not. They apparently have not been here very long. How they got here, we don’t know. There was no passenger or freight ship. In Ferrok-Shahn, they have a dubious reputation at best; but I won’t go into that.

“Venza, I will show you these Martians and the rest depends upon you. There is a mystery; you will find out what it is.”

He reached for his inter-office audiphone. “I want to locate the Martian Set Molo. Francis, Staff X2, has it in charge.”

The audible connection came in a moment. “Francis?”

We could hear the answering microphonic voice, “Yes Colonel.”

“Is the fellow in a public place by any chance?”

“In the Red Spark Cafe, Colonel. With his sister and a party.”

“Good enough. The Red Spark has an image-finder. Have you visual connection?”

“Yes, the whole room; they have a dozen finders.”

“Use a magnifier. Get me the closest view you can.”

“It’s done, Colonel. I did it just in case you called.”

“Connect it.”

In a moment our mirror-grid was glowing with the two-foot square image of the interior of the Red Spark Cafe. I knew the place by reputation: a fashionable, more or less disreputable eating, drinking and dancing restaurant, where money and alcholite flowed freely. The patrons were successful criminals of the three worlds, intermingled with thrilled, respectable tourists who hoped they would see something really evil.

The Red Spark was not far from Halsey’s office; it was perched high in a break of the city roof, almost directly over Park-Circle 29.

“There he is,” said Halsey.

We crowded around his desk. The image showed the interior of a large oval room, balconied and terraced; a dais dance-floor, raised high in the center with three professional couples gyrating there; and beneath them the public dance-grid, slowly rotating on its central axis. A hundred or so couples were dancing. The lower floor was crowded with dining tables; others were upon the little catwalk balconies, and still others in the terraced nooks and side niches, half-enshrouded, half-revealed by colored draperies.

The image now was silent, for Halsey was not bothering with audio connection. But it was a riot of color, flashing colored floodlights bathing the dancers in vivid tints; and there were twinkling spots of colored tube-lights on all the tables. I saw, too, the blank rectangles of darkness against the walls which marked the private dining rooms, insulated against sight and sound. Here one might go for frivolous indiscretion, or for conspiracy, perhaps, and be as secure from interruption as we were, here in Halsey’s office.

Venza asked eagerly, “Which is he?”

“Over there on the third terrace to the left. That table. There seem to be six of them in the party.”

We heard Francis’ voice; he was in Halsey’s lower Manhattan office, with this same image before him. “We’ll get a closer view.”

The table in question was no more than a square inch on our image. We could see an apparently gay party of men and women. One of the couples was gigantic, a Martian man and woman, obviously. The others seemed to be Earth or Venus people.

Francis’ voice added: “I’ve got an audio magnifier on them. Foley’s been listening for an hour. Nice, clear English. Much good it does us; this fellow is as cautious as a director of the lower air-lane. Here’s your near-look.”

Our image shifted to another view. The lens-eye with which we were connected now gave us a view directly over the Martian’s table. We were looking down diagonally upon the table, at a distance of no more than ten feet.

There were three Earthwomen in the party. There was nothing peculiar about them. They were rather handsome, dissolute in appearance, all of them obviously befuddled by alcholite. There was a man who could have been Anglo-Saxon. A wastrel, probably, with more money than wit; he wore a black dinner suit edged with white.

Our attention focussed upon the other two. They were tall, as are all Martians. The young woman, Setta Meka, seemed perhaps twenty or twenty-five years of age, by Earth reckoning, in stature perhaps very nearly my own height, which is six feet two. It is difficult to tell a Martian’s age, but she was very handsome, even by Earth standards; and in Ferrok-Shahn she would be considered a beauty. Her gray-black hair was parted and tied at the back with a plaited metal rope. Her short dark cloak, so luminous a fabric that it caught and reflected the sheen of all the gaudy restaurant lights, was parted, its ends thrown back over her shoulders. Beneath it she wore the characteristic Martian leather jacket, and short, wide leather trousers ornamented with spun metal fringes and tassels. Most Martian women have an amazonian aspect, but I saw now that Setta Meka was an exception.

Her brother, who sat beside her, was a full seven feet or more. A hulking sort of fellow, far less spindly than most of his race, he might have come from the polar outposts beyond the Martian Union. He was bare-headed, his gray-black hair clipped close upon a round bullet head, with the familiar Martian round eyes.

I gazed into the face of Molo, as momentarily he turned his head. It was a rough-hewn, strongly masculine face with a hawk-like nose, bushy black brows frowning above deepset round eyes. The face of a keen scoundrel, I could not doubt, though the smooth-plucked gray skin was flushed now with alcholite, and the wide, thin-lipped mouth was leering at the woman across the table from him.

Like his sister, he had thrown back his cloak, disclosing a brawny, powerful figure, leather clad, with a wide belt of dangling ornaments, some of which probably were weapons.

How long we gazed at this silent colored image of the restaurant table I do not know. I was aware of Halsey’s quiet voice: “Look him over, Miss Venza. It depends on you.”

Another interval passed. It seemed, as we watched, that Molo’s interest in his party was very slight. I got the impression, too, that though at first he had seemed to be intoxicated, actually he was not. Nor was his sister. Anxiety seemed upon her; the smile she had for jests seemed forced; and at intervals she would cast a swift, furtive glance across the gay restaurant scene.