failed from neglect, and the
buildings inside had grown shabbier.

Bruce Gordon was trapped; he couldn't break his job with the police--if
he did, he'd be brought back as a criminal. Some of Mars' laws dated
from the time when law enforcement had been hampered by lack of men,
rather than by the type of men.

The Stonewall gang numbered perhaps five hundred. They hired out members
to other gangs, during the frequent wars. Between times, they picked up
what they could by mugging and theft, with a reasonable amount of murder
thrown in at a modest price.

Even derelicts and failures had to eat; there were stores and shops
throughout the district which eked out some kind of a marginal living.
They were safe from protection racketeers there--none bothered to come
so far out. And police had been taken off the beats there after it grew
unsafe even for men in pairs to patrol the area.

The shopkeepers, and some of the less unfortunate people there, had
protested loud enough to reach clear back to Earth. Marsport had hired a
man from Earth to come in and act as chief of the section. Captain
Murdoch was an unknown factor, and now was asking for more men. The
pressure was enough to get them for him.

Gordon reported for work with a sense of the bottom falling out, mixed
with a vague relief.

"You're going to be busy," Murdoch announced shortly in the dilapidated
building that had been hastily converted to a precinct house. "Damn it,
you're men, not sharks. I've got a free hand, and we're going to run
this the way we would on Earth. Your job is to protect the citizens
here--and that means everyone not breaking the laws--whether you feel
like it or not. No graft. The first man making a shakedown will get the
same treatment we're going to use on the Stonewall boys. You'll get
double pay here, and you can live on it!"

He opened up a box on his desk and pulled out six heavy wooden sticks,
each thirty inches long and nearly two inches in diameter. There was a
shaped grip on each, with a thong of leather to hold it over the wrist.

He picked out five of the men, including Gordon "You five will come with
me. I'm going to show how we operate. The rest of you can team up any
way you want tonight, pick any route that's open. Okay, men, let's go."

Bruce Gordon grinned slowly as he swung the stick, and Murdoch's eyes
fell on him. "Earth cop!"

"Two years," Gordon admitted.

"Then you should be ashamed to be in this mess. But wha