She stopped and stared out the window at the distant gleam of neon. "For a short while there, we had the whole game won," she said. "I knew it was too good to be true."
"Too good to be true?" Ernie repeated, stupidly. "Mr. Phule and the other casino bosses were all ready to give us five million spifflers, just to go away and leave' em alone, and you call that too good to be true? We could've lived like kings, anywhere in the Alliance."
"Yeah, and had the mob on us the minute we let down our guard," snarled Lola. "If only the stupid casino publicity; department hadn't sent our picture out to the galactic media. If Mr. V and his boys were ready to murder us before, what do you think they'll be now?"
Ernie shook his head, trying to conjure up an answer that could do justice to the probable wrath of the mob enforcers who'd come to their apartment back on Bu-Tse to remind them of the job he and Lola had left undone on Lorelei-capturing Captain Jester (A.K.A. Willard Phule), and delivering him into the hands of the syndicate. So he and Lola had come back to Lorelei, but the job was still undone. And now...
Whatever answer he'd been about to offer was aborted by the hotel room's door suddenly swinging open.
"Hello, Ernie," said the heavyset man who walked in. There were two other men behind him, who stood barring the door, which until just a moment ago had been soundly locked. While they were simply standing there, there was very little doubt what they were there for-or what they would do if either Ernie or Lola made a wrong move. The man removed his hat and turned to the window. "And Miss Lola A pleasure to see you both here. But enough small talk--I've come to see what progress you've made on your assignment." He paused frowning. "You have made progress, correct?"
"well, yes, of course," said Lola, making an effort to put on a cheerful smile. "As it happens, we were just about to lay down plans for the final phase of our operation here, and since you're here, I'm sure your input would be..."
"DON'T GIVE ME THAT BULLSHITT!" roared Mr. V-for that was who had come to visit them, unannounced and certainly unwanted. He waited for a moment, then continued in a quieter (but no less menacing) tone, "You two have been paid good money, and as far as I can tell you haven't done a damn thing to earn it. Now, that's just not right, is it, boys?"
There was no response from the two men blocking the door behind him, and Mr. V turned to look, a puzzled expression on his face. It wasn't normal for his underlings to forget their lines, especially when he'd prompted them so clearly. They were exactly where he'd stationed them, but their faces had assumed blank expressions, and even as he watched they slumped slowly to the floor. "What the hell...?" said Mr. V.
His answer came from a little man in a black jumpsuit who poked his head around the doorframe. "Mind if I come in?" he said, stepping over the two fallen thugs. Cradled in his right arm was some sort of exotic device-from the look of it, a weapon.
"Who are you?" Mr. V's voice was harsh, but his expression looked anything but confident. His eyes stayed fixed on the weapon in the little man's arms.
"Mostly people call me. Doc," said the man, with a bright smile. "I'm security chief at the Fat Chance Casino. Which may give you some idea of what I'm doing here, not to mention why I just stunned your muscle boys." He patted the weapon he was carrying. "One of the good things about working for the Legion is you get some really nice hardware."
Mr. V and Ernie were both taken aback by this information, but Lola nodded, and said, "You've been keeping us under surveillance, right?"
"Well, since you won the jackpot, we have," said Doc, with a wink. "Didn't want one of our partners to walk around Lorelei unprotected. There are some mighty rough characters on the station, y'know."
"Yeah, we noticed," said Ernie. "So what happens now?"
"Well, Tullie Bascomb would like you two to come down to his office-he's got a proposition we think will be to everyone's advantage. As for you-" he turned to Mr. V-"there's a squad of legionnaires out in the hallway. They'll take you and your boys down to the spaceport and put you on the next ship out. Tell them where you're staying and they'll get your luggage on board. And, oh yeah-don't plan on coming back."
Mr. V was livid. "You won't get away with this!" he shouted.
"Sure I will," said Doc. Two solidly built men in black jumpsuits came through the door. Doc nodded to them, and said, "He's all yours, men. Don't hesitate to zap him if he gives you any trouble."
"Right-o, Doc," said one of the two, stepping forward to put a hand on Mr. V's shoulder.
"Good, I knew you'd see it my way," said Doc, as a sullen Mr. V stepped to one side and, at the casino guards' signal, raised his hands above his head. Doc turned to Ernie and Lola. "Now, shall we go see what's up at the casino?"
They followed him out the door, stepped over the slumbering mob heavies, and went down the stairs with him. Neither Ernie nor Lola said anything the whole way back to the Fat Chance Casino.
"Here is the hunting ground," said Qual, softly. "It is now requisite to be very careful and quiet. The game's afoot! And you know what that signifies!"
"Hell, no," said L. P. Asho, testily, but Qual had crept ahead out of earshot, so he turned to Austen Tay-Shun, and muttered. "The damn critter's been sayin' that all day long, like it meant somethin'. You got any idea what it means?"
"I think it's a quote out of some Old Earth writer," said Tay-Shun. "Prob'ly Sheik Spear-that old buzzard seems to have wrote almost everything."
"How's a Zenobia lizard know Sheik Spear's stuff?"
Tay-Shun shrugged. "Maybe he just said something similar, and the translator turned it into poetry. Be quiet, now-for all I know, you're like to scare the critters so they come chargin' at us, and I don't want no part of that."
"You see any critters?" whispered Euston 0'Better.
"Damn if I can see anything like a dino..."
"In this light, I'm damned if I can see my hand in front of my face," said Asho. "There could be all sorts of critters out there and we'd never..."
"SHHH!" said Qual, and the three hunters jumped. The Zenobian guide had crept back practically on top of them, so quietly that none of them had noticed. "If humans aren't being very careful and quiet, all is for nought. I am guiding like a good native, but humans must do their part. Follow!" And before any of them could ask a question, Qual turned and vanished into the semidarkness again.
The hunters, chastened, moved in the general direction he'd gone, hoping the trail wasn't too difficult to follow. Some of the places he'd led them through today had been almost too much for the humans, with thick briarlike tangles of underbrush, small biting flying creatures that seemed to have an appetite for human flesh even though they hadn't evolved to eat it, and another small creature whose nest they seemed to have threatened, and which noisily kept trying to repel them until they were far out of its territory. It had been quite a challenge for the three humans to keep up with Qual.
"I don't know how the hell we're supposed to find the damned dinos if we can't see 'em," Asho muttered again. "Why, they might be sneakin' right up on us..."
"Come on, you know somethin' that big would make a lot of noise," whispered O'Better.
"Hey, some of the most dangerous Old Earth dinos were little fellers, not much bigger than you or me," said Asho. "Take that lizard boy Qual, for example. If he was huntin' for us, you think you'd hear him? He could take a big bite out of your butt before you knew he was in the same county..."