Suddenly the girl sat up, and Archman saw her wipe her eyes. “Why am I crying?” she asked. “I should be happy. Tomorrow they’re going to kill me—and that’s the greatest favor I could wish for.”
“Don’t talk like that!”
“Why not? Ever since Darrien’s raiders grabbed me on Planetoid Eleven, I’ve just been bought and sold, over and over, bargained for, used as a pawn in one maneuver after another. Do you think I care if they kill me now?”
Archman was silent. Flickering rays of light from somewhere outside bobbed at random in the cell, illuminating the girl’s almost bare form from time to time. He wanted to talk gently to her, to take her in his arms, to comfort her—
But he couldn’t. He was a trained assassin, not a smooth-talking romancer. The words wouldn’t come, and he crouched back on his heels, feeling the throbbing pain from his beating and the even sharper pain of not being able to speak.
It was the girl who broke the silence. She said, “And what of you? You’re a renegade, a traitor to your home world. How will you feel when you die tomorrow? Clean?”
“You don’t understand,” Archman said tightly. “I’m not—” He paused. He didn’t dare to reveal the true nature of his mission.
Or did he? What difference did it make? In an hour or so, he would be taken to the Interrogator—and most assuredly they would pry from his unwilling subconscious the truth. Why not tell the girl now and at least go to death without her hating him? The conflict within him was brief and searing.
“You’re not what?” she asked sarcastically.
“I’m not a renegade,” he said, his voice leaden. “You don’t understand me. You don’t know me.”
“I know that you’re a cold-blooded calculating murderer. Do I need to know anything else, Archman?”
He drew close to her and stared evenly at her. In a harsh whisper he said, “I’m an Intelligence agent. I’m here to assassinate Darrien.”
There, he thought. He’d made his confession to her. It didn’t matter if the cell were tapped, though he doubted it—the Interrogator would dredge the information from him soon enough.
She met his gaze. “Oh,” she said simply.
“That changes things, doesn’t it? I mean—you don’t hate me any more, do you?”
She laughed—a cold tinkle of a sound. “Hate you? Do you expect me to love you, simply because you’re on the same side I am? You’re still cold-blooded. You’re still a killer. And I hate killers!”
“But—” He let his voice die away, realizing it was hopeless. The girl was embittered; he’d never convince her that he was anything but a killing machine, and it didn’t matter which side he was on. He rose and walked to the far corner of the cell.
After a few moments he said, “I don’t even know your name.”
“Do you care?”
“You’re my cellmate on the last night of my life. I’d like to know.”
“Elissa. Elissa Hall.”
He wanted to say, it’s a pretty name, but his tongue was tied by shame and anger. Bitterly he stared at the blank wall of the cell, reflecting that this was an ironic situation. Here he was, locked in a cell with a practically nude girl, and—
He stiffened. “Do you hear something?”
“No.”
“I do. Listen.”
“Yes,” she said a moment later. “I hear it!”
Footsteps. The footsteps of the Interrogator.
Cautiously, the blue Mercurian touched the stud of the door-communicator outside Meryola’s suite.
“Who’s there?” The voice was languid, vibrant.
“Hendrin. The Mercurian.”
“Come in, won’t you?”
The door slid aside and Hendrin entered. Meryola’s chamber was as luxuriously-appointed a suite as he had ever seen. Clinging damasks, woven with elaborate designs and figures, draped themselves artistically over the windows; a subtle fragrance lingered in the air, and, from above, warm jampulla-rays glowed, heating and sterilizing the air, preserving Meryola’s beauty.
As for Meryola herself, she lay nude on a plush yangskin rug, bronzing herself beneath a raylamp. As Hendrin entered, she rose coyly, stretched, and without sign of embarrassment casually donned a filmy robe. She approached Hendrin, and the usually unemotional Mercurian found himself strangely moved by her beauty.
“Well?” Her tone was business-like now.
“You ask of the girl?”
“Of what else?”
Hendrin smiled. “The girl has been disposed of. She lies in the dungeon below.”
“Has anyone seen you take her there? The mistress of the wardrobe, perhaps? That one’s loyal to Darrien, and hates me; I suspect she was once Darrien’s woman, before she aged.” A shadow of anger passed over Meryola’s lovely face, as if she were contemplating a fate in store for herself.
“No one saw me, your Highness. I induced her to leave the wardrobe-room and took her there by the back stairs. I handed her over to the jailer with orders to keep her imprisoned indefinitely. I gave him a hundred credas.”
Meryola nodded approvingly. She crossed the room, moving with the grace of a Mercurian sun-tiger, and snatched a speaking-tube from the wall.
“Dungeons,” she ordered.
A moment later Hendrin heard a voice respond, and Meryola said, “Was an Earthgirl brought to you just now by a large Mercurian? Good. The girl is to die at once; these are my orders. No, fool, no written confirmation is needed. The girl’s a traitor to Darrien; what more do you need but my word? Very well.”
She broke the contact and turned back to Hendrin. “She dies at once, Mercurian. You’ve been faithful. Faithful, and shrewd—for Darrien pays you to bring the girl here, and Meryola pays you to take her away.”
She opened a drawer, took out a small leather pouch, handed it to Hen-drin. Tactfully he accepted it without opening it and slipped it into his sash.
“Your servant, milady.”
Inwardly he felt mildly regretful; the girl had come in for raw treatment. But soon she’d be out of her misery. In a way, it was unfortunate; with the girl alive he might have had further power over Meryola. Still, he had gained access to the palace, which was a basic objective, and he had won the gratitude of Darrien’s mistress, which was the second step. As for the third—
“Lord Darrien will be angry when he finds the girl is missing, milady. There’s no chance he’ll accuse me—”
“Of course not. He’ll be angry for a moment or two, but I think I’ll be able to console him.” She yawned delicately, and for an instant her gown fluttered open. She did not hurry to close it. Hendrin wondered if, perhaps, she longed for some variety after five years of Darrien’s embraces.
“Our master must be pleased to have one so fair as you,” the blue Mercurian said. He moved a little closer to Meryola, and she did not seem to object. “Legend has it that he trusts you with his innermost secrets—such as the identity of his robot duplicates.”
Meryola chuckled archly. “So the galaxy knows of the orthysynthetics, eh? Darrien’s Achilles heel, so to speak. I thought it was a secret.”
“It is as widely known as your loveliness,” Hendrin said. He was nearly touching Meryola by now.
Frowning curiously, she reached out and touched his bare shoulder. She rubbed her forefinger over the Mercurian’s hard shell and commented, “You blue ones are far from thin-skinned, I see.”
“Our planet’s climate is a rigorous one, milady. The shell is needed.”
“So I would imagine. Rough-feeling stuff, isn’t it? I wonder what the feel of it against my whole body would be like….”
Smiling, Hendrin said, “If milady would know—”
She edged closer to him. He felt a quiver of triumph; through Meryola, he could learn the secret of Darrien’s robot duplicates. He extended his massive arms and gently caressed her shoulders.
She seemed to melt into him. The Mercurian started to fold her in his arms. Then his hypersensitive ears picked up the sound of relays clicking in the door.
In one quick motion he had pushed her away and bent stiffly, kneeling in an attitude of utter devotion. It was none too soon. Before she had a chance to register surprise, the door opened.
Darrien entered.