t his uniform, but made no comment. "Food ready in ten minutes,"
she told him.

She'd already been shopping, and had installed the tiny cooking
equipment used in half Marsport. There was also a small iron lying
beside a pile of his laundered clothes. He dropped onto the bed wearily,
then jerked upright as she came over to remove his boots. But there was
no mockery on her face--and oddly, it felt good to him. Maybe her idea
of married life was different from his.

She was sanding the dishes and putting them away when he finally
remembered the ring. He studied it again, then got up and dropped it
beside her. He was surprised as she fumbled it on to see that it
fitted--and more surprised at the sudden realization that she was
entitled to it.

She studied it under the glare of the single bulb, and then turned to
her room. She was back a few seconds later with a small purse. "I got a
duplicate key. Yours is in there," she said thickly. "And--something
else. I guess I was going to give it to you anyway. I was afraid someone
else might find it--"

He cut her off brusquely, his eyes riveted on the Security badge he'd
been sure Trench had taken. "Yeah, I know. Your meal ticket was in
danger. Okay, you've done your nightly duty. Now get the hell out of my
room, will you?"

* * * * *

The week went on mechanically, while he gradually adjusted to the new
angles of being a Legal. The banks were open, and deposits honored, as
promised. But it was in the printing-press scrip of Legal currency,
useful only through Mayor Gannett's trick Exchanges. Water went up from
fourteen credits to eighty credits for a gallon of pure distilled. Other
things were worse. Resentment flared, but the scrip was the only money
available, and it still bound the people to the new regime.

Supplies were scarce, salt and sugar almost unavailable. Earth had cut
off all shipping until the affair was settled, and nobody in the
outlands would deal in scrip.

He came home the third evening to find that Sheila had managed to find
space for her bunk in his room, cut off by a heavy screen, and had
closed the other room to save the rent. It led to some relaxation
between them, and they began talking impersonally.

Gordon watched for a sign that Trench had passed on his evidence of the
murder of Murdoch, but there was none. The pressure of the beat took his
mind from it. Looting had stepped up.

Izzy had co-operated--reluctant