“Where did you get that?”
“From Grawl, I told you. Why are you asking?”
“Because I’m a cop. That’s my job. I ask questions.”
A cop? Kiru wasn’t sure whether that was a lie or not. She glanced at the massive weapon. “Grawl probably stole it. Are you going to arrest him?”
“For stealing the gun?”
“If that’s more important than trying to steal my brain.”
“This is out of my jurisdiction.” James paused. “I think. In any case, I haven’t got a gun.”
“Take mine.”
“I haven’t got any pants.”
“Neither have I.”
“I had a gun when I arrived.”
“I had pants.”
“But I was disarmed.” James lifted his right hand.
“No, just disfingered. I noticed.” Kiru held his hand, kissing it where the finger had been removed. “Because that’s important to a girl.”
“Important? What do you mean?”
“This important,” she said, taking his left index finger, licking it, then demonstrating.
“Oh,” he said.
“Oh, oh, oh,” she said.
One thing led to another, and then another, as Kiru turned James’s mental gymnastics into ones of a more physical nature. It was only when the nullbed drifted against the wall that Kiru noticed how small the room really was.
Hideaway itself was completely spherical, and there wasn’t a straight line anywhere in the asteroid. The illusion of space in the room was created by the curvature of the walls, the floor, the ceiling, all of which merged into each other at angles that deceived the eye.
“How did Grawl get the gun onto Hideaway?” James asked, eventually. “If I’d tried bringing in a weapon that size, I’d have been disarmed up to the elbow.”
“He smuggled it in. He smuggled himself in. He’s a pirate.”
“A pirate? You mean a space pirate?”
“Is there any other kind?”
“But they don’t exist.”
“They do,” said Kiru. She shouldn’t have said this, admitted that she knew what Grawl was. Now that she’d started, she might as well continue. “A gang of them is attacking Hideaway.”
“When?”
“Now.”
“Shouldn’t we tell somebody?”
“No. They’ll know. It’s too late. They’ll find out.”
For the second time, James had stopped smiling. He was also studying her the way a cop would.
“Who are you hiding from?” he asked.
“Grawl.”
“Who else?”
“The alien doctor.”
“Who else?”
If James really was in the police force, she couldn’t tell him the complete truth. But if he was, he could provide the perfect alibi.
She had arrived on Hideaway with the pirates. If their assault on the planetoid failed, she didn’t want to be arrested as being one of their number.
But if the pirates succeeded, then she had to escape from Grawl. Either that or destroy his body before he could destroy her mind.
“Everyone,” said Kiru. “Except you.”
Zeep-zeep-zeep.
“What’s that?” said James.
“It’s the door,” said Kiru, as she quickly reached for the gun. “Did you have doors three hundred years ago? There’s someone outside.”
“Why don’t they come in?”
“You didn’t have doors? This is your room, James. That’s your door. People can’t come in unless you let them.”
“You came in.”
“I’m different.”
“How different?”
Zeep-zeep-zeep.
“I open doors,” Kiru said, as she aimed the weapon at the optically stretched blank wall.
“With a gun?”
“No.”
Kiru could open doors. Any door. Every door. Doors that were totally secure. Except to her. Opening doors was her talent. A talent which had landed her in a lot of trouble over the years, but which had sometimes helped her get out of danger. That was how she’d escaped from Grawl, and that was how she’d got into James’s room.
The comscreen showed no one outside, but there was a small box lying on the ground. Kiru stood guard as the door blinked open, and James reached for the box. It was black, metallic, studded with spikes and fastened with a chain.
He brought it back into the room. The chain was tied in a bow, almost as if the box had been gift-wrapped.
“Could be a bomb,” said Kiru.
“Is it a bomb?”
“How should I know?”
“Do we open it?”
“How should I know?”
James unfastened the box and carefully opened the lid. They both peered inside. It was full of slimy blue worms, squirming and writhing. He slammed it shut, but not before something dropped out. The size of a playing card, it was furry on one side, like animal hide, and there was writing on the other side.
“What’s it say?” asked Kiru.
“I can’t read alien.”
“You don’t have to.” She rubbed a finger across the fur.
“A small token of my affection,” spoke the card. “In gratitude for your first royal performance. From an anonymous admirer.”
“Who’s it from, James?” asked Kiru.
“I don’t know,” he said. This was the most obvious lie of all.
“You’re blushing.”
“I’m not!”
A wriggling blue shape slithered from the box and dropped out, then squirmed across the floor. James yelled and jumped away. Kiru squashed the bug with the gun barrel.
“Must learn how to fire this,” she said, as she bent down to examine the dead worm. “Looks delicious. Want a taste?”
“No!” James quickly tied the box shut and put it down in the furthest corner—which wasn’t very far.
“Why not? It’s a box of chocolates.”
“It’s not.”
“It is if you’re an alien. Who’s sending you chocolates, James? Is there someone else in your life?”
“No, no one.”
“No one sent you a gift-box of worms?”
“Er… someone… er, just someone I met earlier.”
“This someone was an alien?”
“Yeah, but—”
“And was this alien a she?”
“Yeah!”
“Because you can’t always tell with aliens.”
“Of course she was female. Anyway, I didn’t do anything. How could I have done? With an alien!”
James was standing in one corner of the room, as far from the metal box as possible. Kiru sat on the nullbed, which floated between him and the black box.
“She was a princess,” he said.
“Did she change from an alien when you kissed her?”
“She’s a princess because she’s the daughter of an empress.”
“She told you that?”
“Yeah.”
“And you believed her?” Kiru shook her head. “What was she like?”
“I don’t want to think about her.”
“Maybe not, but she’s been thinking about you. Was she pretty?”
“No. She was ugly. With claws and sharp teeth and… and more sharp teeth.”
“She must have been gentle with you. No sign of any cuts or bruises. But if that’s what you want, James, if that’s what you like, I can bite and scratch.” Kiru beckoned him toward the nullbed. “Come on over here.”
He obeyed. She sank her teeth into him, dug in her nails. Not too too hard, but not too softly. They began again.
Then the bed suddenly dropped to the ground. For a moment, Kiru thought they had exceeded its capabilities.
“Under arrest,” whispered a voice, an inhuman voice, an alien voice.
They were surrounded by a group of ghostly figures.
But at least they weren’t pirates—or so Kiru hoped.
“Where other you?” added the voice. It had no one source, each syllable seeming to come from a different direction.