Chapter 6: Sealed Letter

In the few days at the short-lived Nineteenth Precinct, Bruce Gordon had begun to feel like a cop again, but the feeling disappeared as he reported in at Captain Isaiah Trench’s Seventh Precinct. Trench had once been a colonel in the Marines, before a court-martial and sundry unpleasantnesses had driven him off Earth. His dark, scowling face and lean body still bore a military air.

He looked Bruce Gordon over sourly. “I’ve been reading your record. It stinks. Making trouble for Jurgens--could have been charged as false arrest. No co-operation with your captain until he forced it; out in the sticks beating up helpless men. Now you come crawling back to your only friend, Isaacs. Well, I’ll give it a try. But step out of line and I’ll have you cleaning streets with your bare hands. All right, Corporal Gordon. Dismissed. Get to your beat.”

Gordon grinned wryly at the emphasis on his title. No need to ask what had happened to Murdoch’s recommendation. He joined Izzy in the locker room, summing up the situation.

“Yeah.” Izzy looked worried, his thin face pinched in. “Maybe I didn’t do you a favor, gov’nor, pulling you here. I dunno. I got some pics of Trench from a guy I know. That’s how I got my beat so fast in the Seventh. But Trench ain’t married, and I guess I’ve used up the touch. Maybe I could try it, though.”

“Forget it,” Gordon told him. “I’ll work it out somehow.”

The beat was a gold mine. It lay through the section where Gordon had first tried his luck on Mars. There were a dozen or so gambling joints, half a dozen cheap saloons, and a fair number of places listed as rooming houses, though they made no bones about the fact that all their permanent inhabitants were female. Then the beat swung off, past a row of small businesses and genuine rooming houses, before turning back to the main section.

They began in the poorer section. It wasn’t the day to collect the “tips” for good service, which had been an honest attempt to promote good police service before it became a racket. But they were met everywhere by sullen faces. Izzy explained it. The city had passed a new poll tax--to pay for election booths, supposedly--and had made the police collect it. Murdoch must have disregarded the order, but the rest of the force had been busy helping the administration.

But once they hit the main stem, things were mere routine. The gambling joints took it for granted that beat cops had to be paid, and considered it part of their operating expense. The only problem was that Fats’ Place was the first one on the list. Gordon didn’t expect to be too welcome there.

There was no sign of the thug, but Fats came out of his back office just as Gordon reached the little bar. He came over, nodded, picked up a cup and dice and began shaking them.

“High man for sixty,” he said automatically, and expertly rolled bull’s-eyes for a two. “Izzy said you’d be around. Sorry my man drew that knife on you the last time, Corporal.”

Gordon rolled an eight, pocketed the bills, and shrugged. “Accidents will happen, Fats.”

“Yeah.” The other picked up the dice and began rolling sevens absently. “How come you’re walking beat, anyhow? With what you pulled here, you should have bought a captaincy.”

Gordon told him briefly. The man chuckled grimly. “Well, that’s Mars,” he said, and turned back to his private quarters.

Mostly, it was routine work. They came on a drunk later, collapsed in an alley. But the muggers had apparently given up before Izzy and Gordon arrived, since the man had his wallet clutched in his hand. Gordon reached for it, twisting his lips.

Izzy stopped him. “It ain’t honest, gov’nor. If the gees in the wagon clean him, or the desk man gets it, that’s their business. But I’m going to run a straight beat, or else!”

That was followed by a call to remove a berserk spaceman from one of the so-called rooming houses. Gordon noticed that workmen were busy setting up a heavy wooden gate in front of the entrance to the place. There were a lot of such preparations going on for the forthcoming elections.

Then the shift was over. But Gordon wasn’t too surprised when his relief showed up two hours late; he’d half-expected some such nastiness from Trench. But he was surprised at the look on his tardy relief’s face.

The man seemed to avoid facing him, muttered, “Captain says report in person at once,” and swung out of the scooter and onto his beat without further words.

Gordon was met there by blank faces and averted looks, but someone nodded toward Trench’s office, and he went inside. Trench sat chewing on a cigar. “Gordon, what does Security want with you?”

“Security? Not a damned thing, if I can help it. They kicked me off Earth on a yellow ticket, if that’s what you mean.”

“Yeah.” Trench shoved a letter forward; it bore the “official business” seal of Solar Security, and was addressed to Corporal Bruce Gordon, Nineteenth Police Precinct, Marsport. Trench kept his eyes on it, his face filled with suspicion and the vague fear most men had for Security.

“Yeah,” he said again. “Okay, probably routine. Only next time, Gordon, put the facts on your record with the Force. If you’re a deportee, it should show up. That’s all!”

Bruce Gordon went out, holding the envelope. The warning in Trench’s voice wasn’t for any omission on his record, he knew. He shoved the envelope into his belt pocket and waited until he was in his own room before opening it.

It was terse, and unsigned.

_Report expected, overdue. Failure to observe duty will result in

permanent resettlement to Mercury._

He swore, coldly and methodically, while his stomach dug knots in itself. The damned, stupid, blundering fools! That was all Trench and the police gang had to see; it was obvious that the letter had been opened. Sure, report at once. Drop a letter in the mailbox, and the next morning it would be turned over to Commissioner Arliss’ office. Report or be kicked off to a planet that Security felt enough worse than Mars to use as punishment! Report and find Mars a worse place than Mercury could ever be.

He felt sick as he stood up to find paper and pen and write a terse, factual account of his own personal doings--minus any hint of anything wrong with the system here. Security might think it was enough for the moment, and the local men might possibly decide it a mere required formality. At least it would stall things off for a while...