Part 8 (2/2)

His heavy hand rested on Gordon's arm, holding the younger man back.

Murdoch gave Gordon a brief, tired smile, and started for the stairs.

”Thanks, Gordon. I'm turning in right now.”

Mother Corey shook his head, shaking the few hairs on his head and face, and the wrinkles in his doughy skin deepened. ”Hasn't changed, that one.

Must be thirty years, but I'd know Asa Murdoch anywhere. Took me to the s.p.a.ceport, handed me my yellow ticket, and sent me off for Mars. A nice, clean kid--just like my own boy was. But Murdoch wasn't like the rest of the neighborhood. He still called me 'sir,' when my boy was walking across the street, so the lad wouldn't know they were sending me away.

Oh well, that was a long time ago, cobber. A long time.”

He rubbed a pasty hand over his chin, shaking his head and wheezing heavily. Gordon chuckled. ”Well, how--?”

Something banged heavily against the entrance seal, and there was the sound of a hot argument, followed by a commotion of some sort. Corey seemed to p.r.i.c.k up his ears, and began to waddle rapidly toward the entrance.

It broke open before he could reach it, the seal snapping back to show a giant of a man outside holding the two guards from across the street, while a scar-faced, dark man shoved through briskly. Corey snapped out a quick word, and the two guards ceased struggling and started back across the street. The giant pushed in after the smaller thug.

”I'm from the Ajax Householders Protection Group,” the dark man announced officially. ”We're selling election protection. And brother, do you need it, if you're counting on those mugs. We're a.s.sessing you--”

”Not long on Mars, are you?” Mother Corey asked. The whine was entirely missing from his voice now, though his face seemed as expressionless as ever. ”What does your boss Jurgens figure on doing, punk? Taking over _all_ the rackets for the whole city?”

The dark face snarled, while the giant moved a step forward. Then he shrugged. ”Okay, Fatty. So Jurgens is behind it. So now you know. And I'm doubling your a.s.sessment, right now. To you, it's--”

A heavy hand fell on the man's shoulder, and Mother Corey leaned forward slightly. Even in Mars' gravity, his bulk made the other buckle at the knees. The hand that had been reaching for the knife yanked the weapon out and brought it up sharply.

Gordon started to step in, then, but there was no time. Mother Corey's free hand came around in an open-palmed slap that lifted the collector up from the floor and sent him reeling back against a wall. The knife fell from the crook's hand, and the dark face turned pale. He sagged down the wall, limply.

The giant opened his mouth, and took half a step forward; but the only sound he made was a choking gobble. Mother Corey moved without seeming haste, but before the other could make up his mind. There was a series of motions that seemed to have no pattern. The giant was spun around, somehow; one arm was jerked back behind him, then the other was forced up to it. Mother Corey held the wrists in one hand, put his other under the giant's crotch, and lifted. Carrying the big figure off the floor, the old man moved toward the seal. His foot found the b.u.t.ton, snapping the entrance open. He pitched the giant out overhanded; holding the entrance, he reached for the dark man with one hand and tossed him on top of the giant.

”To me, it's nothing,” he called out. ”Take these two back to young Jurgens, boys, and tell him to keep his punks out of my house.”

The entrance snapped shut then, and Corey turned back to Gordon, wiping the wisps of hair from his face. He was still wheezing asthmatically, but there seemed to be no change in the rhythm of his breathing. ”As I was going to say, cobber,” he said, ”we've got a little social game going upstairs--the room with the window. Fine view of the parades. We need a fourth.”

Gordon started to protest that he was tired and needed his sleep; then he shrugged. Corey's house was one of the few that had kept some relation to Earth styles by installing a couple of windows in the second story, and it would give a perfect view of the street. He followed the old man up the stairs.

Two other men were already in the surprisingly well-furnished room, at the little table set up near the window. Bruce Gordon recognized one as Randolph, the publisher of the little opposition paper. The man's pale blondness, weak eyes, and generally rabbity expression totally belied the courage that had permitted him to keep going at his hopeless task of trying to clean up Marsport. The _Crusader_ was strictly a one-man weekly, against Mayor Wayne's _Chronicle_, with its Earth-comics and daily circulation of over a hundred thousand. Wayne apparently let the paper stay in business to give himself a talking point about fair play; but Randolph walked with a limp from the last working over he had received.

”Hi, Gordon,” he said. His thin, high voice was cool and reserved, in keeping with the opinion he had expressed publicly of the police as a body. But he did not protest Corey's selection of a partner. ”This is Ed Praeger. He's an engineer on our railroad.”

Gordon acknowledged the introduction automatically. He'd almost forgotten that Marsport was the center of a thinly populated area, stretching for a thousand miles in all directions beyond the city, connected by the winding link of the electric monorail. ”So there really is a surrounding countryside,” he said.

Praeger nodded. He was a big, open-faced man, just turning bald. His handshake was firm and friendly. ”There are even cities out there, Gordon. Nothing like Marsport, but that's no loss. That's where the real population of Mars is--decent people, men who are going to turn this into a real planet some day.”

”There are plenty like that here, too,” Randolph said. He picked up the cards. ”First ace deals. d.a.m.n it, Mother, sit down-wind from me, won't you? Or else take a bath.”

Mother Corey chuckled, and wheezed his way up out of the chair, exchanging places with Gordon. ”I got a surprise for you, cobber,” he said, and there was only amus.e.m.e.nt in his voice. ”I got me in fifty gallons of water today, and tomorrow I do just that. Made up my mind there was going to be a cleanup in Marsport, even if Wayne does win. And stop examining the cards, Bruce. I don't cheat my friends. The readers are put away for old-times' sake.”

Randolph shrugged, and went on as if he hadn't interrupted himself.

”Ninety per cent of Marsport is decent. They have to be. It takes at least nine honest men to support a crook. They come up here to start over--maybe spent half their life saving up for the trip. They hear a man can make fifty credits a day in the factories, or strike it rich crop prospecting. What they don't realize is that things cost ten times as much here, too. They plan, maybe, on getting rich and going back to Earth....”

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