He looked at me for a moment, then turned abruptly and left the cell. He told the patrolman, whom he had posted by the door, to wait, then he disappeared down the corridor. The patrolman closed the cell door but didn't bother to lock it. He didn't need to. The bludgeon gun in the crook of his arm was a sufficient deterrent. Presently I heard Taigue's returning footsteps. They were accompanied by other footsteps--light, quick footsteps. My heart broke the barrier I had erected around it, rose up, choking me. When I saw her shorn hair I wanted to cry. Her face was more like a little girl's than ever, but the blue eyes gazing straight into mine were the eyes of a mature woman. There was regret in them, but no shame. I turned away from her. "Dismiss your assistant," I told Taigue. "What I have to say is none of his business." Taigue started to object, then changed his mind. With the reassurance he so desperately needed at his very fingertips, he wasn't in the mood to argue over trivialities. He took the patrolman's bludgeon gun, sent him on his way, re-entered the cell and closed the door. He leaned against the genuine steel panels, directed the muzzle of the gun at my chest. "Well, Mr. Bartlett?" "You asked for this, Taigue," I said. "You wouldn't have it any other way. Julia, come here." She stepped to my side. Seizing the lapels of her Hester Prynne prison dress, I ripped it down the middle and tore it from her body. CHAPTER VI Julia shrank back, trying to cover her nakedness with her arms. Taigue became a statue, a statue staring with horrified eyes at a shining goddess who had abruptly deteriorated into a mere woman. I tore the gun from his grasp before he could recover himself and bludgeoned him beneath the heart. But his eyes were glazed even before the charge struck him. I looked at him disgustedly as he sank gasping to the floor. The self-righteous idealism with which he had clothed Julia had been even thinner than the earthly clothes I had ripped away. I turned to Julia. She had retrieved the prison dress, had slipped into it, and was improvising a catch to hold it together. Her face was white but her eyes were dry. I searched those eyes anxiously. I don't know why I should have been relieved to find understanding rather than anger in them, but I was relieved--more relieved than I would have cared to admit. "Can you pilot a 'copter?" I asked. She nodded. "I've been piloting them since I was twelve." "There's a 'copter port on the roof. If we can reach it, we've got a chance. I don't know where we'll go, but we'll go somewhere--" "We'll go to Mars, Roger. If you're willing." She had finished repairing her dress and stood calm and poised before me. "This is no time for jokes," I said. "And I'm not joking. There's a ramp not far from here that will take us to the roof. Come on, Roger!"