"SHADRACH" By NELSON S. BOND Once, in Bible times, three men were cast into a fiery furnace--and lived! Now, on far-off, frozen Titania, three space-bitten Shadrachs faced the same awful test of godship. [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Planet Stories Fall 1941. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.] The man at the end of the bar was very drunk. That was not, in itself, unusual. Xuerl's Cosmobar, dangling like a leech on the drab outskirts of Mars Central, did not cater to a select clientele. It was not noted for its culture or gentility; it was famed from one end of the System to another as a place where a hard-fisted, full-pursed spaceman, newly in from the mines or out from Earth, could get a weapon or a wench, a bottle or a battle, any or all with equal celerity. And at an instant's notice. But the man at the end of the bar was very drunk. So drunk, indeed, that he seemed neither to notice nor to be concerned about the actions of his comrades. And they, Chip Warren thought as he watched the bleary man pour yet another jigger of green from a malevolently gleaming bottle of _lisk_, were a particularly evil-looking and ill-assorted lot. Even for a dive like this. "A Venusian," he mused, "a greenie, a runt--and an Earthman. Like bugs in a rug...." "Trink?" piped a thin, reedy voice at Chip's elbow. "Trink, ssor?" Chip shook his head in reply to the Martian barman's query. Damned chrysanthemum! he thought. Damned squeaking, upright chrysanthemum! He would never, so long as he lived, get used to hearing English speech emanating from the curled petals that served as a Redlander's head. Martians tried to look like Earthlings. They braced their soft, pallid bodies in steel uprights, they underwent serious and probably painful operations to give themselves a humanoid appearance, but they still looked--and always would to Chip--like ungainly flowers of madness. "No," he said. "Not just now, thanks. Later." He returned his gaze to the group at the end of the bar. A new member had joined the quartet. Another Earthman. Warren's eyes became more speculative as the newcomer drew the Jovian aside, queried him briefly, then moved to the drunken man's shoulder. "Trink?" piped the persistent voice of the barman. "Blast jets!" said Chip curtly. "I'll order when I get damn good and--_hey!_" * * * * * The gasp broke unbidden from his lips. In the din and confusion of Xuerl's Cosmobar it went unnoticed, even as had gone unnoticed by everyone else the momentary byplay he had glimpsed.