"I know what you're going to say," interrupted Halleck, "that although these salts enable the Kamalis to maintain eternal life, they mean instant death to a person of Earth. Well, we've taken care of that. We've worked out a process that makes them harmless for a year." "And after that...?" Simms persisted. Halleck shrugged. "After that we'll have made our pile. We're simply selling a drug guaranteed to erase the ravages of time. It'll go like wildfire." * * * * * Up on the wall a mercury clock pulsed rhythmically, and below the floor level sounded the faint drone of the dehydrators. Motionless, Simms sat there. Like wildfire, Halleck had said. And the words were only too true. The quest for perpetual youth was eternal. Earth men still envied the two hundred year old Martians, the three hundred year old Jovians. Tell them that these _Deleon_ Salts were both harmless and effective, and the results would be cataclysmic. Every person on Earth would demand some of the crystals. And in a year.... "Where did you get these salts?" Simms asked. For answer Halleck reached forward and plucked something from the Venusian Service man's belt before the latter could restrain him. Capped and sealed at both ends, it was an official mold-proof message cylinder. "Three weeks ago," Halleck said, tapping the cylinder with his finger, "you left Post One with this tube bound for Venusian headquarters at BeTaba. You were sent in person because any radio or visiscreen communication would of course be intercepted by the Kamali Oligarchs. "The tube contains two messages. One asks for reinforcements at the Post because of a recent epidemic of Mold Fever. The other demands your resignation because of insubordination. Insubordination--refusing to obey orders. Right, isn't it?" A knife of bitterness cut through Simms. Yes, it was right, every word of it. He had come here to Venus direct from the Inner-Planet Military School on Earth. At Venus City he had waited six months before receiving his appointment to the Venusian Colonial Service. And then, without preamble, he had been sent to the most remote garrison in the Blue Swamp mold country--Post One. A week after his arrival the Commandante had ordered him to ferret out a certain Kamali native who had rebelled against the Government, and disable him with a paralysis gun. Somehow when Simms had come face to face with the web-footed creature, his conscience had rebelled. Shooting in self-defense was one thing, but crippling in cold blood didn't seem human. He had let the Kamali go unharmed. And a week later that same Kamali had sneaked through the impentration walls of the Post and murdered two Service men.