Newlin had seen Earth. Few of his
memories were pleasantly nostalgic. Born there, in the poorest quarter
of the international spaceport of Sahara City, his early life had been
hard. Both parents had died there, broken from strain and poverty, and
Newlin escaped only by stowing away in the dangerous after-holds of a
rocketship bound for Mars, risking the unpleasant death from leaking
radioactives in preference to being poor on Earth.

He had been poor since, in many places, but never with the grinding
hopelessness of those early nightmare years. Their mark stayed with him
and colored his life. He knew every rathole of the system, with the same
intimacy the rats knew them. Once, on a non-stop express rocket from
Mars to Pluto, he had lost a finger and all the toes from his left foot
in ceaseless guerilla warfare with rats which had disputed possession of
the hold in which he stowed away. More than once he had bummed passage
near the atomic fuel vats of cranky old space-freighters that were mere
tin cans caulked with chewing gum. As boy and man, he slept in jails
from the dark, mad moons of Neptune to the fiery beach-head colonies of
Mercury. And with fists, brain and nimble fingers he had written an epic
biography in Security Police annals.

Like other cities of the space frontier, Venusport was raw and crude,
exotically beautiful and cruelly violent. To Newlin it was old stuff,
picturesque, with the spicy flavor of a perilous vacation spot. After
abrasive years on a dozen planets and habitable moons, the ugly
savageries of Venus had only a quaint charm. Survival was always
comparatively easy there, and a man shed normal fears with the
shredding, blistered skin of spaceburns. He was surprised when the girl
shuddered and drew close to him. Her instinctive trust amused him, and
he laughed brutally. The sound slashed between them like a chilled
blade.

They went together, in silence. Faint, flat breeze from the city's
air-conditioners fanned their faces. It was dark enough, and for Venus,
reasonably cool. Buildings strewn like a careless giant's toys formed a
vague and monstrous backdrop. Street-lighting was poor, for such
luxuries are expensive and the city fathers cared little what happened
to the poor, diseased, half-starved nonentities. All streets were
crooked aimless alleys, all black and empty. Only near landing stages
and space-freight elevators was there any activity. Darkness and the
Cyclopean setting gave more