She went away, clapping her hands for a slatternly wench who came between the sprawled figures with an earthen mug. Stark sat down beside a table, where his back was to the wall and he could see both the door and the whole room. Kala had returned to her own heap of furs by the door, but her basilisk eyes were alert. Stark made a pretence of drinking, but his mind was very busy, very cold. Perhaps this, in itself, was the trap. Freka was temporarily a beast. He would fight, and Kala would shriek, and the other dull-eyed brutes would rise and fight also. But he would have needed no warning about that--and Delgaun himself had said there would be trouble. No. There was something more. He let his gaze wander over the room. It was large, and there were other rooms off of it, the openings hung with ragged curtains. Through the rents, Stark could see others of Kala's customers sprawled under Shanga-lamps, and some of these had gone so far back from humanity that they were hideous to behold. But still there was no sign of danger to himself. There was only one odd thing. The room nearest to where Freka sat was empty, and its curtains were only partly drawn. Stark began to brood on the emptiness of that room. He beckoned Kala to him. "I will try the lamp," he said. "But I wish privacy. Have it brought to that room, there." Kala said, "That room is taken." "But I see no one!" "It is taken, it is paid for, and no one may enter. I will have your lamp brought here." "No," said Stark. "The hell with it. I'm going." He flung down a coin and went out. Moving swiftly outside, he placed his eye to a crack in the nearest shutter, and waited. Luhar of Venus came out of the empty room. His face was worried, and Stark smiled. He went back and stood flat against the wall beside the door. In a moment it opened and the Venusian came out, drawing his gun as he did so. Stark jumped him. Luhar let out one angry cry. His gun went off a vicious streak of flame across the moonlight, and then Stark's great hand crushed the bones of his wrist together so that he dropped it clashing on the stones. He whirled around, raking Stark's face with his nails as he clawed for the Earthman's eyes, and Stark hit him. Luhar fell, rolling over, and before he could scramble up again Stark had picked up the gun and thrown it away into the ruins across the street. Luhar came up from the pavement in one catlike spring. Stark fell with him, back through Kala's door, and they rolled together among the foul furs and cushions. Luhar was built of spring steel, with no softness in him anywhere, and his long fingers were locked around Stark's throat. Kala screamed with fury. She caught a whip from among her cushions--a traditional weapon along the Low-Canals--and began to lash the two men impartially, her hair flying in tangled locks across her face. The bestial figures under the lamps shambled to their feet, and growled.