"I'll get you," he vowed. "I'll get you." Ramsey took the girl outside. It was very cold. "I'm so afraid," she said. "What will I do? What can I do?" She shook with fear. "You got a place to sleep?" "Y-yes, but I'm the only Vegan girl in Irwadi City. He'll find me. He'll find me when he's ready." "O.K. Then come home with me." "I--" "For crying out loud, I don't look that lecherous, do I? We can't just stand here." "I--I'm sorry. I'll go with you of course." Ramsey took her hand again and they ran. The cold black Irwadian night swallowed them. "So you live in the Old Quarter too," the Vegan girl said. "Heck yeah. Did you expect a palace?" * * * * * Ramsey had a room, rent one Irwadi month in arrears, in a cold-water tenement near the river which demarked the Old and the New Quarters. The façade of the old building was dark now. His landlady was probably asleep, although you never could tell with that old witch. Ramsey knew it wouldn't be the first time she stayed up through half the night to await a delinquent tenant. "I--I never went to a man's room before," the blue-skinned Vegan girl said. She was rather pretty in a slender, muscleless, big-eyed, female-helpless mode. "You're a dance-hall girl, aren't you?" "Still, I never spent the night in a man's--" "What's the matter with you? You think we're going to spend the night here? Somebody over at those gaming tables will be able to identify me. Garr Symm'll be on his way before long." "Then what are we going to do?" The girl was shivering with cold. "Hide," Jason Ramsey said. "Somewhere. I just came back to get my things. There isn't much, but there's an old m.g. gun which we might need." "But they'll find us, and--" "You coming upstairs or will you wait out here and freeze to death in the cold?" "I'm coming." They went upstairs together, on tip-toe. Ramsey's room was on the third floor, with a besooted view of the industrial complex on the river by day. The narrow hall was dark and silent. Behind one of the closed doors an outworlder cried out in his sleep. Ramsey had to cup a hand over the Vegan girl's mouth so she wouldn't scream in empathic fear. He opened the door of his room, surprised that it was not locked. He thought he had left it locked. At once he was wary. It was dark in the hall, just as dark in the room. He could see nothing. The door hinges squeaked. "Come in, Captain Ramsey," a voice said. "I thought you would never get here." He stood on the threshold, uncertain. The voice had spoken not Interstellar _Coine_, but English. It had spoken English, without a foreign accent. And it was a girl's voice. * * * * * Still, it could have been an elaborate trick. It was unlikely, but not impossible, that Garr Symm had learned Ramsey's identity already and had sent an operative here to await him. Ramsey and the Vegan girl had come on foot. It was a long walk.