It was the Big Sleep for those at Residential
Number 327 this night ... this very dark Martian
night ... this very good night for the Synthi-Rain.
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
Planet Stories March 1954.
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
It was the eve of the annual synthi-rain and all Mars was settlingdown for the big sleep that always went with it. Everything was ready,reso-skins had been peeled off the pumps a week before.
Uh huh, thought the lone attendant at the fuelport outside the city.You could tell everything was ready, even the traffic was thinning.Hadn't been a 'copter or anything in for fuel in the last ten minutes.
He eyed the wall clock inside his cubicle. Almost eleven. Might aswell close up and go on home, there wouldn't be any more customers intonight.
He suddenly decided to modify that thought as an old hull-weary jobcame banging clumsily down into cradle number one and slumped, littlevibration tentacles rippling here and there over its surface. Hesighed, went out the lock, went over to the cradle.
There was a woman in the ship. Not much of a woman, but you never knewwhat the big gambling city of Fraon would draw next in the line oftourists. All kinds.
Like this one. This one could be called typical. Wild black hair onthe dame. Not long, but wild. A little sloppy, like the last-season'smodo-strap she wore on the white skin between her breasts. The straplooked fringy.
"Fuel, Miss?" he asked.
But the woman didn't seem to hear. She was studying a small scanningdisc, turning it this way and that like somebody pruning herself. Onlynot. She was giving the place the once over.
"Yeah," she said finally. "Yeah, but not the kind you think...."she stopped. She glared suddenly across the ramps at another jet—aSecurity Ship—that was coming in fast, settling for the cradle nextto hers.
"No," she said. "No. Changed my mind. How far's Fraon from here?"
"You're on the edges now. Follow the bottom lane and drop when you seethe lights. That be all?"
But the woman didn't answer. She yanked at controls inside the cabinand the old beat up jet rose with a tired, grumbling roar like the sighof a very old man contemplating the long long years that have gone.
Ten minutes later she looked down, yanked once more on the controls.She'd almost overshot. The ship shuddered violently fore to aft andthen jammed down inside the Administration Port.
She hunched her shoulders inside the plastiskin, let her eyes go up toa sucker sign off in the distance. She read:
CITY OF FRAON,
GAMBLER'S PARADISE
And in smaller letters beneath:
COME CLEAN—GO AWAY THE SAME
She curled her lip. Between Fraon and the city of Jao to the south, theplanet had quite a bit of "Paradise." Of the two cities, though, Fraonwas the larger; Fraon would be the logical one. That's why she'd choseto try it first. That's where he would come.
She left the ship and made her way over to the Guide, a small nicheof a place set into the corner of the now darkened Administrationbuilding. The Guide was open but it didn't look as though it was doingany business. She went inside.
There weren't any customers at all. The only person in the place wasa young, greasy looking man, an attendant, who just now was lookingbored and fingering a black pencil line mustache.
The greasy looking man raised his eyes. His finger left off caressinghis mustache, and he studied the woman coming toward the desk. H'mm.Nice build. A l