Wandl the Invader | Page 5

I knew the place by
reputation: a fashionable, more or less disreputable eating, drinking and
dancing restaurant, where money and alcholite flowed freely. The
patrons were successful criminals of the three worlds, intermingled
with thrilled, respectable tourists who hoped they would see something
really evil.
The Red Spark was not far from Halsey's office; it was perched high in
a break of the city roof, almost directly over Park-Circle 29.
"There he is," said Halsey.
We crowded around his desk. The image showed the interior of a large
oval room, balconied and terraced; a dais dance-floor, raised high in the
center with three professional couples gyrating there; and beneath them
the public dance-grid, slowly rotating on its central axis. A hundred or
so couples were dancing. The lower floor was crowded with dining
tables; others were upon the little catwalk balconies, and still others in
the terraced nooks and side niches, half-enshrouded, half-revealed by
colored draperies.
The image now was silent, for Halsey was not bothering with audio
connection. But it was a riot of color, flashing colored floodlights
bathing the dancers in vivid tints; and there were twinkling spots of
colored tube-lights on all the tables. I saw, too, the blank rectangles of
darkness against the walls which marked the private dining rooms,
insulated against sight and sound. Here one might go for frivolous
indiscretion, or for conspiracy, perhaps, and be as secure from
interruption as we were, here in Halsey's office.
Venza asked eagerly, "Which is he?"
"Over there on the third terrace to the left. That table. There seem to be
six of them in the party."
We heard Francis' voice; he was in Halsey's lower Manhattan office,
with this same image before him. "We'll get a closer view."

The table in question was no more than a square inch on our image. We
could see an apparently gay party of men and women. One of the
couples was gigantic, a Martian man and woman, obviously. The others
seemed to be Earth or Venus people.
Francis' voice added: "I've got an audio magnifier on them. Foley's
been listening for an hour. Nice, clear English. Much good it does us;
this fellow is as cautious as a director of the lower air-lane. Here's your
near-look."
Our image shifted to another view. The lens-eye with which we were
connected now gave us a view directly over the Martian's table. We
were looking down diagonally upon the table, at a distance of no more
than ten feet.
There were three Earthwomen in the party. There was nothing peculiar
about them. They were rather handsome, dissolute in appearance, all of
them obviously befuddled by alcholite. There was a man who could
have been Anglo-Saxon. A wastrel, probably, with more money than
wit; he wore a black dinner suit edged with white.
Our attention focussed upon the other two. They were tall, as are all
Martians. The young woman, Setta Meka, seemed perhaps twenty or
twenty-five years of age, by Earth reckoning, in stature perhaps very
nearly my own height, which is six feet two. It is difficult to tell a
Martian's age, but she was very handsome, even by Earth standards;
and in Ferrok-Shahn she would be considered a beauty. Her gray-black
hair was parted and tied at the back with a plaited metal rope. Her short
dark cloak, so luminous a fabric that it caught and reflected the sheen
of all the gaudy restaurant lights, was parted, its ends thrown back over
her shoulders. Beneath it she wore the characteristic Martian leather
jacket, and short, wide leather trousers ornamented with spun metal
fringes and tassels. Most Martian women have an amazonian aspect,
but I saw now that Setta Meka was an exception.
Her brother, who sat beside her, was a full seven feet or more. A
hulking sort of fellow, far less spindly than most of his race, he might
have come from the polar outposts beyond the Martian Union. He was

bare-headed, his gray-black hair clipped close upon a round bullet head,
with the familiar Martian round eyes.
I gazed into the face of Molo, as momentarily he turned his head. It was
a rough-hewn, strongly masculine face with a hawk-like nose, bushy
black brows frowning above deepset round eyes. The face of a keen
scoundrel, I could not doubt, though the smooth-plucked gray skin was
flushed now with alcholite, and the wide, thin-lipped mouth was leering
at the woman across the table from him.
Like his sister, he had thrown back his cloak, disclosing a brawny,
powerful figure, leather clad, with a wide belt of dangling ornaments,
some of which probably were weapons.
How long we gazed at this silent colored image of the restaurant table I
do not know. I was aware of Halsey's quiet voice: "Look him over,