Trigger let her breath out slowly. There was no point in yelling now.
She could feel her legs tremble a little, but she didn't seem to be
actually frightened. At least, not yet.
"Spot anything so far?" the man who held her asked. It was a deep voice.
It sounded matter-of-fact, quite unexcited.
"Three possibles anyway," the driver said with equal casualness. He
didn't turn his head. "Make it two.... One very definite possible now,
I'd say!"
"Better feed it to her then."
The driver didn't reply, but the car's renewed surge of power pushed
Trigger down hard on the seat. She couldn't see much more than a
shifting piece of the sky line through the front view plate. Their own
car seemed to be rising at a tremendous rate. They were probably, she
thought, already above the main traffic arteries over Ceyce.
"Now, Miss Argee," the man sitting beside her said, "I'd like to
reassure you a little first."
"Go ahead and reassure me," Trigger said unsteadily.
"You're in no slightest danger from us," he said. "We're your friends."
"Nice friends!" remarked Trigger.
"I'll explain it all in a couple of minutes. There may be some fairly
dangerous characters on our tail at the moment, and if they start to
catch up--"
"Which they seem to be doing," the driver interrupted. "Hang on for a
few fast turns when we hit the next cloud bank."
"We'll probably shake them there," the other man explained to Trigger.
"In case we don't though, I'll need both hands free to handle the guns."
"So?" she asked.
"So I'd like to slip a set of cuffs on you for just a few minutes. I've
been informed you're a fairly tricky lady, and we don't want you to do
anything thoughtless. You won't have them on very long. All right?"
Trigger bit her lip. It wasn't all right, and she didn't feel at all
reassured so far.
"Go ahead," she said.
He let go of her left arm, presumably to reach for the handcuffs. She
twisted around on him and went into fast action.
She was fairly proficient at the practice of unarmed mayhem. The trouble
was that the big ape she was trying the stuff on seemed at least as
adept and with twice her muscle. She lost a precious instant finding out
that the Denton was no longer in her robe pocket. After that she never
got back the initiative. It didn't help either that the car suddenly
seemed to be trying to fly in three directions at once.
All in all, about forty seconds passed before she was plumped back on
the seat, her hands behind her again, linked at the wrists by the smooth
plastic cords of the cuffs. The ape stood behind the driver, his hands
resting on the back of the seat. He wasn't, Trigger observed bitterly,
even breathing hard. The view plate was full of the cottony whiteness of
a cloud heart. They seemed to be dropping again.
One more violent swerve and they came flashing out into wet gray
cloud-shadow and on into brilliant sunlight.
A few seconds passed. Then the ape remarked, "Looks like you lost them,
chum."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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