She stepped out from behind another pillar. A tall, black-haired woman with wide cheek-bones and cold, green eyes. Her face was hard and she carried her hand weapon with all the assurance of one who was thoroughly familiar with it. Two men came with her. They were capable looking men but not the grim, hard-eyed professionals that Stan was used to working with. The woman walked over to Stan and slapped his face--hard--her nails digging bloody furrows in his skin. "How does it feel to be a traitor? How does it feel to sell out your native planet for nothing at all?" He didn't know what she was talking about and his face showed it. "It was a clever scheme," she continued bitterly. "To win a planet, you first cut off its head--you eliminate the scientists!" She leveled her hand weapon at him. "But that's not all you've had in mind. What other schemes has the renegade earthman thought of?" The world slipped into a haze of red and his hand darted for the pocket where he kept his heat gun--to pause, uncertainly, when he remembered it lay on the concrete fifteen feet away. "_I'm no ape!_" She laughed. "They've made you into a Pavlovian dog that drools whenever they ring a bell--and you don't even realize what they've done to you! They pull the strings and their marionette jerks and dances and does their dirty work for them!" Stan stared at her coldly. "What are you going to do?" "Kill you. Now." She raised the weapon and Stan knew she was perfectly capable of doing it. A moment more and the small pellets would burrow into his body, to explode deep in the flesh. He tensed himself for a final effort to escape, knowing it would be next to useless. "You poor fool," she said slowly. "You'll be better off dead." Her finger tightened on the trigger. She never pulled it. There was a scream behind her and one of her men collapsed to the pavement, a thin swirl of smoke drifting up from his blasted chest. The girl's eyes narrowed, then she suddenly darted towards the river that lapped against the parking level. The remaining man dropped to his knees to cover her escape and the ramp was filled with the spanging sound of his own pistol. The sound ceased abruptly in another burst of flames and smoke and then Tanner was racing down the ramp. "_Don't let her get away!_" Stan ran to the river's edge and Tanner cut the oily surface with lancing rays from his heater. "She's gone," Stan said in a tired voice. "Save it." He watched the surface for a moment more, than turned back to Tanner. "Who was she? What's her name?" Tanner shrugged. "I don't know who she is or what she's doing here. I can't tell you." He wouldn't forget her, Stan thought slowly. That long, black hair and those green eyes. And she had moved like a cat, a sleek cat who was just as willing to kill for a cause as he was. Tanner was studying his face. "Don't get any ideas about her--she's an ape." Stan looked at him coldly. "The only idea I have is to kill her before she kills me."