Dark smiled. "I said that I would be willing to help you," he replied gently. "I follow no man's orders." The green eyes fixed themselves unwinkingly on the pale-blue ones for a long moment. The blue ones did not waver. At last, to Fancher's utter amazement, the Chief nodded agreement. 5 Maya Cara Nome looked from her furnished room through cracked shutters at the building across the street. A barber college. The building at 49 Sage Avenue, Mars City, was a barber college. That surprised her. She didn't know exactly what she had expected: a hospital, perhaps, or even a kindergarten. But a barber college! But the source of the information she had received that 49 Sage Avenue was the address she sought was unimpeachable. She had ferreted it out, after a long time and through devious ways, and she was sure she could trust it. "The Childress Barber College" read the neatly lettered sign above the door. Maya's landlady, moon-faced Mrs. Chan, had pointed out Oxvane Childress to her as he left the building one day: a big man, comfortably stomached, with a heavy brown beard which, even at that distance, she could see was shot with gray. As innocent as you please. Childress came out and went in, the students went in and came out. Still, it was the address she had been given. Maya had to gain entrance to the building. She could learn nothing watching it from outside. She was established here as a tourist from Earth; besides, the position and activities of women were prescribed rigidly by Martian colonial convention, and women did not study to become barbers on Mars. She would have to have help. She, thought at once of Nuwell, and as immediately rejected him. "Maya, I don't see why you insist on working alone," he had complained. "I can set the whole machinery of government in motion to help you, whenever you need it." "Primarily because you're well known and your activities are observed," she had answered. "Your whole government machinery hasn't been effective in tracking down the rebel headquarters yet, and it's reasonable to assume that the rebels have a fairly effective intelligence network. My job is to find that headquarters, and if I were seen very often with you or tried to utilize your government machinery, they'd have me pinpointed pretty soon." She left the window, filled a tiny basin with precious water, shrugged out of her negligee and sponged her small, perfect body. She donned form-fitting tunic, briefs and short skirt, pulled on knee-length socks and laced up Martian walking shoes. She spent some time preparing her hair and face. Then she left the room and the house and walked uptown. The walk was about a kilometer, along sidewalks bordered by cubical, functional houses and trim lawns of terrestrial grass and small trees. Above the city, its dome was opalescent in the morning sun.