Presently he located Yamen’s tavern and slipped cautiously past the photoelectric doors. The place was crowded as usual with the sweepings of space, including a good many nonhumans from remote planets, and he was grateful for the dim light and the fog of smoke. There was a live show performing on a tiny stage, but even its nudity was no recommendation and Alak did not regret having to sit with his back to it in order to watch the door. He sat at a small table in a dark corner and slipped a coin in the vendor for beer. When it arrived from the chute it was warm and thin, but it was at least alcoholic. He sipped it and sat gloomily waiting for something to happen.

That didn’t take long. A Rassalan slithered into the chair opposite him. The reptile’s beadlly glittering eyes searched under the man’s cowl. “Hello,” he said. “You might buy me a drink. Wouldn’t snub an old friend, would you?”

“Hardly, when the old friend would let out a squawk as to my identity if I did,” said Alak wryly. He set the vendor for the acrid and ultimately poisonous vurzin to which he knew the Rassalan was addicted, and put in the coin. “How are things, Slinh?” he asked.

“So-so.” The little dragonlike creature shrugged his leathery wings. “But the sivva-peddling racket is getting unsafe. Voal’s narcotics squad is cracking down. I can’t complain—made my share on this planet—but I’m about to leave Luan.” His black passionless eyes studied Alak’s foxy face. “I suppose you are, too.”

“Why so?” asked the Solarian cautiously.

“Look Sarb Duman—I might as well stick to the alias you’ve been giving around here, though the police have been broadcasting a certain other name for the past half hour or more—let’s be sensible. When an unknown with apparently limitless resources starts organizing the crooks of a planet for something big whose nature he won’t reveal exactly, a being who’s seen something of the Galaxy begins to have suspicions. When the police suddenly pick up all this stranger’s contacts and start televising ‘Wanted’ notices for him with a different name and occupation appended—well, any high-grade moron can guess the story.” Slinh sipped his drink, adding smugly, “I consider myself a step above moron. Seems I have just now heard rumors of arrests in the army, too. Seems there has been a revolutionary tendency—Could the mysterious stranger have any connection?”

“Could be,” said Alak. He didn’t inquire into the nature of the so quickly spreading rumors, or how they had got started. Someday the Patrol must investigate the evidence hinting at some race in the Galaxy which had not chosen to reveal its telepathic abilities but to use them instead for private advantage. At the moment there was more urgent business.

“I might have a little trouble leaving this planet,” said Alak. “You might, too.”

“I can always find a hiding place and go into hibernation for a few years till they forget about me,” said Slinh. “But a human at large might have difficulties even staying alive. I doubt if any Luanian crooks would help a”—he lowered his hissing voice—“Patrolman now that there’s a war on. In such times, the mob hysteria officially known as patriotism infects all classes of society.”