"I'm armed," Ramsey lied. "Come over here. Slowly. Don't put any lights
on." He could feel the Vegan girl trembling next to him. Not able to
understand English, she didn't know what was going on.
"You're armed," the unseen girl's voice said in crisp, amused English,
"like I'm a six-legged Antarean spider-man. You have an m.g. gun,
Ramsey. It's in this room. I have it. That's all you have. No, don't try
to lie to me. I'm a telepath. I can read you. Come in and put the light
on and shut the door. You may bring the girl with you if you want.
Brother, is she ever radiating fear! It's practically drowning your own
mind out."
The unseen girl wasn't kidding, Ramsey knew. She could read minds. She
had proved it to him. Which left him this choice: he could grab the
Vegan girl's arm again and get the heck out of there, or do what the
unseen Earth girl told him to do. He wanted that m.g. gun. He took the
Vegan girl's hand and advanced over the threshold and closed the door
and switched on the light.
The girl was sitting on the bed. She was an Earthgirl, all right. She
had come in a toggle-cloak of green Irwadian fur, which was folded
neatly at her side on the bed. Under it she wore a daring net halter of
the type then fashionable on Earth but which had not yet taken over the
outworlds. It left her shoulders bare and exposed a great deal of
smooth, tawny skin through the net. Her firm breasts were cupped in two
solid cones of black growing out of the net. Her midriff was bare to an
inch or two below the navel. Her loins were covered by an abrevitog
which formed a triangle in front and, Ramsey knew, would form one in
back. Her long, well-formed legs were bare down to the mid-calf boots
she wore. She had a beautiful body and had dressed so Ramsey couldn't
miss it. Her face was so provocatively beautiful that Ramsey just stood
there staring at it--after he had taken in the rest of her. She wore her
hair quite long. She seemed perfectly composed. In her right hand she
held Ramsey's m.g. gun, but she wasn't pointing it at them.
She looked at the timid Vegan girl and smiled. "Oh, I am sorry, Captain
Ramsey," she said. "I couldn't know, of course, you'd be coming home
with--company."
"It isn't what you think it is," Ramsey said, surprised to find himself
on the defensive. "The girl's in trouble. So'm I."
The Earthgirl laughed. "Already? You looked the type, but I thought it
would take a little time."
"What do you want?" Ramsey said. They were speaking in English. The
Vegan girl tugged at Ramsey's arm. She wanted to get out of there and
hoped Ramsey would go with her. Abruptly the Earthgirl burst out
laughing.
"What's so funny?" Ramsey demanded.
"Your little Vegan friend. I read her mind, Ramsey. She thinks I'm your
wife. She thinks I'm mad at you for bringing her home."
"Then why don't you talk in _Coine_," Ramsey said in the interstellar
language, "and make her feel better? She might as well know I never saw
you before in my life." He was annoyed.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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