He smiled. "Then we have our choice of 53 empty houses."
She lit a smokeless cigarette. "So it's not enough that I helped a criminal escape capture," she said bitterly. "Now the police can add breaking and entering to the charges."
"I'm grateful that you stopped my friend Commander Balsam from shooting me," said Danny, "but no one asked you to. It was your choice to hinder a police officer in the pursuit of a criminal, so don't blame me."
"I told you: I wasn't thinking clearly," she said. "I was just reacting."
"Believe me, no one's going to arrest you," Danny assured her. "Any red-blooded man who was at the tavern will swear that Balsam tripped over you."
"Do you really think so?"
"I do. Besides, if I don't know your real name, neither do they. If you choose to stay with me, all they know is they're after someone who called herself the Duchess. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I'll give plenty of ten-to-one that that's not the name on your ID disk or your passport."
"It isn't. I didn't like my name, so I changed it."
"They do that on the Inner Frontier, not here on the Democracy worlds. How can the government keep tabs on you if they don't know who you are?"
"I never thought of it that way," she said, "but maybe choosing a new name wasn't a bad idea."
"Beats the hell out of being a Myrtle."
"Do I look like a Myrtle to you?"
He stared at her and shook his head. "You look like a Duchess who saved my life. Of course, you won't drink with me, but if I have to choose between your doing one or the other . . ." He ended with a smile.
"Well, you look exactly like a Danny Briggs."
"That bad, huh?"
"If you don't like the name, change it like I did."
"What would I change it to?"
"That's for you to decide."
"I never had a hero," he admitted. "I guess I'll keep it and stay who I am."
They stood in silence for a few more minutes, engulfed in angular shadows. Then Danny checked his timepiece.
"We've been here almost an hour," he announced. "I think we can start hunting up a place to stay while we figure out our next move."
"Where are we going?" she asked as he began walking back toward the city.
"Where do you want to go?"
"You know that little hill at the south end of town, the one overlooking Lake Belora?" she said. "Have you got anything there?"
"I've got two houses in the area," he replied. "I won't know if either of them has a lake view until we get there."
The first house was actually in a valley just beyond the hill, but the second, still luxurious but less impressive, looked like they would be able see the lake from the second level.
"It's too bad I didn't know this would be happening," remarked Danny. "There's an empty villa fronting the lake. It even has a dock and a couple of boats."
"So let's go there."
He shook his head. "It's going to be robbed sometime tonight. We don't want to be anywhere near it, just in case."
"How will we get in?" asked the Duchess as they approached the front door of the house they had chosen. "I don't know how to break into a house. Won't it have a security system?"
"Have a little trust in the man whose life you saved," he replied, kneeling down to study the computer lock. "Shit!"
"What is it?"
"I can crack the combination in a couple of minutes, but it's got a bone reader."
"A bone reader?"
"Yeah. I can get around almost any retina ID system, but bone readers are tough. They scan your skeleton and compare it to anyone who the computer's been programmed to accept. I've got a couple of healed fractures that won't match up against anyone else's."
"Then we'll do without our lake view and go to the other house."
"Give me a minute," he said. "There's never been a security system that couldn't be penetrated."
"By you?"
"By somebody." He flashed her a smile. "I am but a talented amateur."
"Sure," she retorted. "And I'm a millionaire virgin."
"That gives me all the more reason to find a way into the house."
He touched the lock, and a holographic screen appeared in the air, filled with dozens of icons. His fingers began moving expertly over the lock, and the icons began racing across the screen in near-hypnotic patterns.
"How's it coming?" asked the Duchess after a few minutes.
"Oh, it's been unlocked for awhile," he said.
"But you can't hide your fractures."
"I'm not trying to."
After another minute he stood up. "Okay," he said. "I'm done."
The door dilated, and she began to step through it. He grabbed her arm and held her back.
"Gentlemen first," he said, stepping through.
The door slammed shut in her face. He disappeared for a moment, then opened the door and invited her in.
"What was that all about?" she said, entering the house.
"I fed the computer the data about my skeleton and told it I'd been approved. But I didn't know what your skeletal history might be, so after I went in I deactivated the security system." He paused. "I also ordered all the windows to polarize. We can see out, but no one on the outside can see in, even if we have the lights on."
"Do you do this kind of thing often?" she asked.
"Certainly not," he replied. "I get people who are hungrier than I am to do it for me."
She stared at him with an expression that was a cross between concern and admiration. "There's a lot more to you than meets the eye."
"Thank you," said Danny. "I won't even offer an obscene rejoinder." He looked around. "So what do you think of our new quarters?"
"Elegant," she said, walking through the entry room. The carpet anticipated her steps and thickened as she walked, and the mural on the wall slowly, almost imperceptibly, began turning into a three-dimensional scene, then gradually added motion. It went back to being a flat painting as they passed into the next room.
"This is some house!" she said. "I've never been close to anything like this!"
"Yeah, a person could get used to this without much effort," agreed Danny, as a chair positioned itself to accommodate him.
"As long as we're going to be stuck here for a day or two, let's go upstairs and see if we can see the lake," suggested the Duchess.
"Why not?" assented Danny, following her to a staircase. As they put their feet on the first wide stair, it metamorphosed into a carpeted escalator, totally silent, and gently transported them up to the second floor.
They walked to a window and stared out.
"You can almost see it," she said. "If we were even one floor higher we'd have a magnificent view."
"I saw a third level of windows when we were outside," said Danny. "There's probably an attic above us somewhere. We should be able to see it from there."
They searched through the rooms, and finally came to an airlift next to a storage closet.
"This has got to be it," said Danny. "It's the only thing leading up."
"What do we stand on?" asked the Duchess nervously as she looked down to the basement some thirty feet below.