“Go ask him if he wants to see her.”
“Thank you.” The girl gripped Paula’s hand. “I can—we may save the Middle Planets.” Her hand was slick. The Styths were all trying to see through her clothes. Paula freed herself from the moist grip. Ketac came back.
“He says to send her in.”
Paula nodded to her. “Go on. It’s the last door on the right.”
The girl reached for her again, and Paula avoided her grasp. “Please,” the redhead said. “Come with me.”
“I’d be an inhibiting factor.”
“But I don’t speak their language.”
Paula let herself be drawn up the narrow corridor, away from the Styths. “I think you might. Anyway he’s bilingual.” At the door, her hand on the latch, she turned, admiring the smooth skin of the girl’s net-covered belly. It would be fun to tease him. She opened the door and let the girl in ahead of her.
“Prima, now they’re sending you virgins.”
He was standing near the foot of the bed. The girl went toward him, her hand out. “My name is Lore Smythe. I’d like to talk to you.”
“Talk.” He took her hand, not to shake it, and smiled at her. “Why would a pretty girl like you want to do something that boring?”
Paula leaned over the back of one of his stuffed chairs. “You are so subtle.”
He nudged Lore Smythe toward the sideboard. “The liquor is in that cabinet.” His head swiveled toward Paula. “I thought you were leaving.”
“She thinks she’ll need an interpreter.” Paula smirked at him.
“Good-bye, Paula.”
“Not even a stirrup cup?”
“Miss Mendoza,” Lore Smythe said, in a new sharp voice. “Stay where you are.” Paula and Saba turned in unison toward her. In her hand she held a gun.
Saba lunged toward her and the gun snapped. Paula heard the thunk of the missile hitting him. He fell on his face and rolled over. A short clear dart stuck up out of his left chest. He clawed at it once and his hand slid limp to the floor.
“That was stupid,” Paula said. Lore Smythe pointed the gun at her.
“The rest of the shots are all killers,” the redhead said. Her voice was different than when she had been pleading to see him. “And I don’t have any orders to bring you back alive.”
“Is Newrose behind this?”
Lore’s full mouth curled with contempt. “Newrose.” She stuck two fingers down into the front of her metallic suit and took out a small blue piece of plastic. “Here. This is a thumblock, you see? Put it on him.” She threw the plastic at Paula. Too light to carry far, it landed on the brown tile floor midway between them. Paula stooped to pick it up, and Lore Smythe circled behind her to the door. She heard the lock click.
“That’s narcolepta in the dart,” the redhead said, in her hard, crisp voice. “It will drip into his system for the next twenty hours. By then I’ll have him halfway to Mars.”
The thumblock was shaped like a figure-of-eight. Paula went over to Saba’s body. The girl called, “Don’t get between me and him. And don’t try to pull the nail out—it’s long, and it’s barbed. Hurry up.”
The dart’s clear three-inch barrel stuck up straight out of his chest. Blood tinged it pink at the needle end. Paula circled behind him and knelt. She touched his cheek and his throat. His skin was cool, but not cold. He was only asleep, then, not knocked out.
“This will never work,” she said. “They’ll kill all three of us before they let you take him to Mars.”
“Just thumb him.”
His left arm lay half under him. She pulled it free. “Do you want me to tie his hands behind him or in front?” Surreptitiously she took a fistful of his shirt under his armpit and tugged, which tilted the dart toward her.
“Unh—”
“Have you tried this on any real Styths? You know they’re much stronger than we are. Him especially.”
Lore’s eyes narrowed. Her cheeks were flushed. “Just do as I tell you.” She waved the little gun. Its narrow barrel was longer than its body. “All I have to do is pull this trigger, lady, and in thirty seconds you’ll be dead.”
There was a knock on the door, and the redhead wheeled, the gun aimed at it. The latch moved up and down. While Lore was watching the door, Paula tugged once on the dart. It was fast in his chest. The pink color was spreading in the drug. He traded a drop of blood for a drop of narcolepta. The knock sounded again.
“Papa.”
“David,” she called, alarmed. She was afraid to speak Styth to him; Lore might think she was calling him in. “Come back later. We’re busy.”
The Martian turned toward her, her blue eyes direct above the gun. “That’s right. Put that lock on him. Take his arms behind his back.”
Paula reached across him for his right arm and hauled him up onto his side, his back to Lore Smythe. His wrist seemed cooler, his pulse slower. She had to hurry.
“Be careful when you roll him over,” the Martian girl said. “Do it slow and you won’t run that nail through his lung.”
Paula stepped around him, between him and Lore, to turn him onto his stomach. She brought his hands behind him and took a tight grip on his shirt. When she rolled him slowly onto his stomach, just as his chest turned onto the floor, she wrenched on his shirt to tilt the dart. For an instant the dart braced him up. She leaned on him and heard a tiny splintering crack, and he lay flat. She crossed his thumbs behind him and bound them with the plastic bridge.
“Back off,” Lore said, and she moved away across the room. The redhead went cautiously to him and pushed him with her foot.
“He doesn’t look so big now, does he? Not so big at all.” She kicked him. Bending, she pulled on the bond on his thumbs. “Good, you did it right.”
“That’s my motto,” Paula said. “If I can’t do it right, I don’t do it at all.” She folded her arms over her chest.
“You think you’re funny, don’t you? You think you’re tough.” Lore kicked him again.
“I admit I’m not that brave, to kick him when he’s tied up and unconscious.” A thin trickle of fluid seeped out from under him, running across the floor. She tore her eyes away from it. “You think you’re brave enough to kick me, Lore?”
Lore turned toward her, the gun aimed at her face. “I don’t have any orders about you at all. You’re supposed to be dead. I can do anything I want with you.” She strode up to Paula, waggling the gun, and took another thumblock out of her silvery clothes. “Turn around.”
Paula turned her back. “You won’t make it out of this room, Lore. You might as well give up.”
The girl’s sweating hands fastened on Paula’s wrists. She wrenched her arms behind her. Paula said, “By now they know everything that’s happening here.”
Lore was hooking Paula’s thumbs together. By the quality of her grunt Paula knew she had the gun in her teeth. She said, “The place is wired, Lore.”
“I don’t believe you,” Lore said. She stepped back. “These barbarians aren’t that sophisticated.”
“This is Luna, remember?” Paula faced her, her arms fastened painfully behind her back. “Everything is wired.”
“You’re supposed to be dead,” Lore told her. “You made a lot of trouble for us.”
“The Sunlight League.”
“That’s right.”
“You know Dr. Savenia is here.” It took effort to keep from looking beyond the redheaded girl at Saba. Frantically she kept talking. “Only I doubt you’d know her now.”
“She goes with me too,” Lore said. She tipped the gun up at Paula’s face. “Maybe I’ll take you, if you cooperate.”
“I’d sooner eat dirt.”
The cold barrel of the gun pressed under Paula’s chin. “Oh, you think you’re so tough.” The gun pushed her head up.