The alley ahead was deserted. It was a blind alley and at the head of it was The Temple of Joy where the officers of the Nova would be beginning their night's carousal. A frown made two vertical furrows between Gavin's sandy brows. Then a movement at the other end of Mercury Alley caught his attention. Two men were bearing down on him. They came ahead in the open, but with caution. A shiver of apprehension coursed up Gavin's spine. He spun around. The shadower behind him was no longer furtive. He too was closing in warily. Both exits of the alley were closed. Except for a single bar, the buildings on either hand were dark and silent. Trap! The bar should have a rear exit. Gavin wheeled suddenly and plunged through the door. A barmaid industriously polishing the plastic bar glanced up as Gavin slammed the door. There was one customer, a Terran, seated at a corner table. He smiled at Gavin. "Won't you have a seat, Mr. Murdock?" Gavin halted in mid-stride to regard the man in utter astonishment. He was a nondescript-looking fellow, middle-aged, with a slight black mustache. "Won't you sit down, Mr. Murdock?" he repeated genially. "I was beginning to fear you'd never arrive." The girl crossed silently to the door and bolted it. Gavin's bewilderment gave way rapidly to caution. His pale blue eyes narrowed; his face hardened. He had been herded into the bar, he realized, like a horse into a corral. "Sit down," urged the middle-aged man for the third time. "What'll you have?" Gavin reached a decision. He sat down with his back to the wall so that he could keep both the door and the barmaid under observation and said, "Bourbon." "Fetch the gentleman bourbon, Meg," said the middle-aged man in a pleasant voice. The girl brought a bottle of Terran whiskey and a glass, placing them on the table before Gavin. She was a buxom blonde with hard, unsmiling blue eyes and hard, painted features. Her violet shorts fit too tight and she was wearing the sketchiest kind of halter around her full breasts. Gavin poured himself a drink and waited. "You're wondering, no doubt," began the middle-aged man, "how we knew who you were and the route you'd take." He smiled briefly. "We have our ways of knowing, Mr. Murdock. Let me assure you that, before we decided to approach you, we made a complete examination of your record. For instance, you were chief engineer of the Europa. That was vital. We had to have a man with a technical knowledge of space drives." Gavin allowed consternation to register on his face, but thought, A good bluff—if I had been chief engineer of the Europa! The middle-aged man, he realized, was only parroting the misinformation he had given Trev, the Martian. Obviously, he had learned about Gavin from either Trev or that girl, Nadia Petrovna. Captain Cabot wouldn't be apt to double-cross himself and this had all the earmarks of treachery. Gavin drank and asked, "Well?"