wly, settling back against the tape machine.
Then he shrugged and bowed faintly. "The chianti, sir!"

I turned my head toward the bottles, and Eve started forward. Then I
yelled as Wilcox shoved his hand down toward the tape machine. The gun
came out on a spring as he touched it.

Muller shot once, and the gun missed Wilcox's fingers as the
engineer's hand went to his hip, where blood was flowing. He collapsed
into the chair behind him, staring at the spot stupidly. "I cut my
teeth on _tough_ ships, Mr. Wilcox," Muller said savagely.

The man's face was white, but he nodded slowly, and a weak grin came
onto his lips. "Maybe you didn't exaggerate those stories at that," he
conceded slowly. "I take it I drew a short straw."

"Very short. It wasn't worth it. No profit from the piddling sale of
drugs is worth it."

"There's a group of strings inside the number one fuel locker," Wilcox
said between his teeth. The numbness was wearing off, and the
shattered bones in his hip were beginning to eat at him. "Paul, pull
up one of the packages and bring it here, will you?"

I found it without much trouble--along with a whole row of others,
fine cords cemented to the side of the locker. The package I drew up
weighed about ten pounds. Wilcox opened it and scooped out a
thimbleful of greenish powder. He washed it down with wine.

"Fatal?" Muller asked.

The man nodded. "In that dosage, after a couple of hours. But it cuts
out the pain--ah, better already. I won't feel it. Captain, I was
never piddling. Your ship has been the sole source of this drug to
Mars since a year or so after I first shipped on her. There are about
seven hundred pounds of pure stuff out there. Grundy and the others
would commit public murder daily rather than lose the few ounces a
year I gave them. Imagine what would happen when Pietro conscripted
the _Wahoo_ and no drugs arrived. The addicts find out no more is
coming--they look for the peddlers--and _they_ start looking for their
suppliers...."

He shrugged. "There might have been time and ways, if I could have
gotten the ship back to Earth or Jupiter. It might have been
recommissioned into the Earth-Mars-Venus run, even. Pietro's
injunction caught me before I could transship, but with another
chance, I might have gotten the stuff to Mars in time.... Well, it was
a chance I took. Satisfied?"

* * * * *

Eve stared at him with horrified eyes. Maybe I was looking the