“You!” she screamed as he popped the canopy open.
She turned and ran to the house. He went to leap out after her, but the seat harness yanked cuttingly at his middle and shoulders.
By the time Hector had unbuckled the harness and jumped, stumbling, to the ground, she was inside the house. But the door was still open, he saw. Hector sprinted toward it.
A servant, rather elderly, appeared on the walk before the door. Hector ducked under his feebly waving arms and launched himself toward the door, which was now swinging shut. He got halfway through before the door slammed against him, wedging him firmly against the jamb.
Hector could hear someone panting behind the door, struggling to get it closed despite the fact that one of his arms and a leg were flailing inside the doorway. Hoping it wasn’t Geri, he pushed hard against the door. It hardly budged. It’s not her, he realized. Setting himself as solidly as he could on his outside leg, he pushed with all his might. The door gave slowly, then suddenly burst open. Hector sailed off balance into the husky servant who had been pushing against him. They both sprawled onto the hard plastiwood floor of the entryway.
Hector groped to all fours and caught a glimpse of Geri at the top of the wide, curving stairway that dominated the main hall of the house. Then the servant fell on him and tried to pin him down. He rolled over on top of the servant, broke loose from his clumsy grip, and got to his feet.
“I don’t want to hurt you!” he said shakily, holding his hands out in what he hoped was a menacing position. Another pair of arms grappled at him from behind, but weakly. The old servant. Hector shrugged him off and took a few more steps into the house, his eyes still on the husky one, who was now crouched on the floor and looking up questioningly at Geri.
All she has to do is nod, Hector knew, and they’ll both jump me.
“I told you I never wanted to see you again!” she screamed at him. “Never!”
“I’ve got to talk to you,” he shouted back. “Just for five minutes… Uh, alone.”
“I don’t… your nose is bleeding.”
He touched his upper lip with a finger. It came away red and sticky.
“Oh… the door… I must’ve banged it on the door.”
Geri took a few steps down the stairway, hesitated, then seemed to take a deep breath and came slowly down the rest of the way.
“It’s all right,” she said calmly to the servants. “You may leave.”
The brawny one looked uncertain. The old one piped, “But if he…”
“I’ll be all right,” Geri insisted firmly. “You can stay in the next room, if you like. The Lieutenant will only be here for five minutes. No longer,” she added, turning to Hector.
They withdrew reluctantly.
“You ruined my flowers,” she said to Hector. But softly, and the corners of her mouth looked as though they wanted to turn up. “And your nose is still bleeding.”
Hector fumbled through his pockets. She produced a tissue from a pocket in her dress.
“Here. Now clean yourself up and leave.”
“Not until I’ve said what I came to say,” Hector replied nasally, holding the tissue against his nose.
“Keep your head up, don’t bleed on the floor.”
“It’s hard to talk like this.”
Despite herself, Geri smiled. “Well, it’s your own fault. You can’t come swooping into people’s gardens like… like…”
“You wouldn’t see me. And I had to tell you.”
“Tell me what?”
Putting his head down, his neck cracking painfully as he did, Hector said:
“Well… blast it, Geri, I love you. But I’m not going to be your hired assassin. And if you loved me, you wouldn’t want me to be. A man’s not supposed to be a trained pet… to do whatever his girl wants him to. I’m not…”
Her expression hardened. “I only asked you to do what I would have done myself, if I could have.”
“You would’ve killed Odal?”
“Yes.”
“Because he murdered your father.”
“That’s right.”
Hector took the tissue away from his face. “But Odal was just following orders. Kanus is the one who ordered your father killed.”
“Then I’d kill Kanus, too, if I had the chance,” she snapped angrily.
“You’d kill anybody who had a hand in your father’s death?”
“Of course.”
“The other soldiers, the ones who helped Odal during the duel, you’d kill them too?”
“Certainly!”
“Anybody who helped Odal? Anybody at all? The star-ship crew that brought him here?”
“Yes! All of them! Anybody!”
Hector put his hand out slowly and took her by the shoulder. “Then you’d have to kill me, too, because I let him go. I helped him to escape from you,”
She started to answer. Her mouth opened. Then her eyes filled with tears and she leaned against Hector and began crying.
He put his arms around her. “It’s all right, Geri. It’s all right. I know how much it hurts. But… you can’t expect me to be just as much of a murderer as he is… I mean, well, it’s just not the way to…”
“I know,” she said, still sobbing. “I know, Hector. I know.”
For a few moments they remained there, holding each other. Then she looked up at him, and he kissed her.
“I’ve missed you,” she said, very softly.
He felt himself grinning like a circus clown. “I… well, I’ve missed you, too.”
They laughed together, and she pulled out another tissue and dabbed at his nose with it.
“I’m sorry about the flowers.”
“That’s all right, they’ll.…” She stopped and stared toward the doorway.
Turning, Hector saw a blue-anodized robot, about the size and shape of an upended cargo crate, buzzing officiously at the open doorway. Its single photoeye seemed to brighten at the sight of his face.
“You are Star Watch Lieutenant Hector H. Hector, the operator of the vehicle parked in the flower bed?” it inquired tinnily.
Hector nodded dumbly.
“Charges have been lodged against you, sir: violations of flight safety regulation regarding use of traffic lanes, failure to acknowledge radio intercept, unauthorized flight patterns, failure to maintain minimum altitude over a residential zone, landing in an unauthorized area, trespass, illegal and violent entry into a private domicile, assault and battery. You are advised to refrain from making any statement until you obtain counsel. You will come with me, or additional charges of resisting arrest will be lodged against you. Thank you.”
The Watchman sagged; his shoulders slumped dejectedly.
Geri barely suppressed a giggle. “It’s all right, Hector. I’ll get a lawyer. If they send you to jail, I’ll visit you. It’ll be very romantic.”
5
Odal sat in the darkness of the dueling machine booth, turning thoughts over and over in his mind. To remain as Kor’s experimental animal meant disgrace and the torture of ceaseless mind-probing. Ultimately an utterly unpleasant death. To join Romis meant an attempt to assassinate the Leader; an attempt that would end, successful or not, in death at the hands of Kanus” guards. To refuse to join Romis led again—and this time immediately—to death.
Every avenue of choice came to the same end. Odal sat there calmly and examined his alternatives with a cool detachment, almost as though this was happening to someone else. It was even amusing, almost, that events could arrange themselves so overwhelmingly against a lone man.
Romis’ voice in his mind was imperative. “I cannot keep this link open much longer without risking detection. What is your decision?”