But how far was the city? Five miles? Ten? How could you judge distance through a haze of alien sand? And were Simple Simon or Jacob's men following? How good was a Venusian's vision at night? Would the scaly hands find him even now, descending on him from out of the blackness? He kept walking, walking. Sixty-eight degrees. Gradually his senses grew numb to the fear of recapture. He became oblivious to the wailing wind and the beat of dust against his face-plate. He moved like a robot. His mind wandered back through time and space, a pin-wheel spinning with unforgettable impressions, faces, voices. He saw the white features of a dead man, their vividness fading now and no longer terrifying. _A Space Officer Is Honest. A Space Officer Is Loyal. A Space Officer Is Dutiful._ The words were like clear, satisfying music. He cursed at the image of a pop-eyed Martian boy. _A tres fine table, monsieur. Close in the shadows._ And yet, he told himself, the boy really didn't do anything wrong. He was only helping to capture a murderer. Maybe he was lonesome for Mars and needed money to go home. Ben thought of Maggie: _While other gals were dressing for their junior proms, I'd be in sloppy slacks down at the spaceport with Jacob.... If I'd only known her back on Earth--_ Maggie, sitting alone now with a wrinkled paper and its mass of scrawled circuits. Alone and hollow with grief and needing help. Ben's throat tightened. Damn it, he didn't want to think about that. What was it the little big-eared man had said? _I've made copies for our own ships and for the brass in Hoover City._ Why had he said that? Why would renegades give their secrets to the Space Corps? The Corps would incorporate the discoveries in their ships. With them, they'd reach the asteroids. Jacob's group would be pushed even further outward. Ben stopped, the wind whipping at his suit and buffeting his helmet--but not as hard as the answer he had found. * * * * * Jacob and his men had an existence to justify, a debt to pay. They justified that existence and paid that debt by helping humanity in its starward advance. Maggie had said, _We carry cargoes of almost pure uranium and tungsten and all the stuff that's getting scarce on Earth and Mars and Venus. If we want to risk our lives getting it, that's our business.... The dome we're in now was designed and built by us a few years ago. We lost a few men in the construction, but with almost every advance in space, someone dies._ The wind pressed Ben back. The coldness of the Venusian night was seeping into his suit. It was as if his body were bathed, at once, in flame and ice. He slipped, fell, his face turned toward the sandy ground. He did not try to rise. Yet his mind seemed to soar above the pain, to carry him into a wondrous valley of new awareness.