The blonde stripper, having uncovered as much of herself as she could without resorting to dissection, jumped down from the stage and walked over to the two EXTS officers. "Would you gentlemen like to buy me a drink?" she asked. Kim's eyes roved abroad in a brief anatomy lesson, but Barnaby said, "I'll buy you one a couple of weeks from now, if I'm not laid up somewhere with a splitting headache." He stood unsteadily and tossed a ten-credit certificate on the table. "If you're really thirsty, get a drink out of that." Kim reluctantly followed his superior officer from the bar. At the door he turned and called back to the blonde, "Don't catch cold, child. I'll be back." * * * * * The dawn jetoff was miserable, as jetoffs always are. Four days brought the ship within falling-distance of Mars; soon the jets thundered as it backed into a pocket of hills outside Klamugra. The air-pumps hammered to bring the air pressure inside the hull gradually down to that of the outside, so that instruments and equipment wouldn't be subjected to a sudden lowering of pressure. The men inside the ship slipped plastic helmets over their heads, checked the tiny air-pumps on their shoulders, and drew on heavy gloves and boots. When the port swung open Kim and Barnaby climbed down the ladder to the blast-blackened sand. The sergeant of EXTS Provost Marshall who had accompanied them walked with the officers to a hill overlooking the ancient Martian city of Klamugra, which stood on a terrace about five kilometers to the north. The red adobe walls of the city, testimony of the ancient days when Mars had enough water to allow its use for brick-making, blended with the distance to seem a part of the red desert sand. A cloud of steam and dust appeared between the hill where they stood and the city. Captain Barnaby un-leathered his binoculars and pressed them to the eyepieces of his helmet, and made out a hopping jeep, its top enclosed in plastic and a trio of supercharger coils poking through the sides of the hood. Clouds of steam followed the jeep as its exhaust streamed out into the chilly air. * * * * * In a moment the jeep spun up the hill and ground to a halt. There was a pause as the men inside the jeep fitted their helmets on their shoulders, checked their air-pumps, and drew on their gauntlets. Then the plastic bubble lifted back, a sergeant jumped out from under the steering wheel and saluted, and a Colonel, EXTS Intelligence, walked up to Captain Barnaby and Lieutenant Kim. "Gentlemen," he said, "I'm Colonel Lee Montgomery, Commanding Officer, Third Sector. It is my unpleasant duty to turn you over to the Chief Technician of the Martian Judging Authority, who is Rhinklav'n, here."