Adventure stories; Man-woman relationships -- Fiction; Science fiction; War stories
The defense was closing. Counsel for the prisoner declared that the
latter might have been the innocent victim of the escapee, Evelyn
Kane, possibly a telepathic Terran woman, because only a fool would
have permitted a prisoner to escape without attempting to juggle the
prison records, unless his mind had been under telepathic control. They
ought to be looking for Evelyn Kane now, instead of wasting time with
her victim. She might be anywhere. She might even be in this building.
He bowed apologetically to Evelyn, she smiled at the faces suddenly
looking at her with new interest.
The man in the prisoner's chair was peering at Evelyn through
half-closed eyes, his arms crossed on his chest. He had stopped
coughing, and the fingers of his right hand were tapping patiently on
his sleeve.
If Perat should at this moment probe the prisoner's mind....
Evelyn, in turning to smile at Perat, knocked the bottle from the
table to the floor, where it broke in a liquid tinkle. She put her
hands to her mouth in contrite apology. The judge-provost frowned, and
Perat eyed her curiously. The prisoner was seized with such a spasm of
coughing that the provost, who had stood to pronounce sentence, paused
in annoyance. The wracking ceased.
The provost picked up the Faeg lying before him.
"Have you anything to say before you die?" he asked coldly.
The ex-inquisitor stood and turned a triumphant face to him.
"Excellency, you ask, where is the woman prisoner who escaped from me?
Well, I can tell you...."
He clutched wildly at his throat, coughed horridly, and bent in Evelyn
Kane's direction.
"_She_...."
His lips, which were rapidly growing purple, moved without saying
anything intelligible, and he suddenly crashed over the chair and to
the floor.
The prison physician leaped to him, stethoscope out. After a few
minutes, he stood up, puzzled and frowning, in the midst of a strained
silence. "Odd, very odd," he muttered.
"Did the prisoner faint?" asked the judge-provost incuriously, lowering
the Faeg.
"The prisoner's lungs are filled with liquid, apparently the result of
hyperactive adrenals," commented the baffled physician. "He's dead, and
don't ask me to explain why."
Evelyn smothered a series of hacking coughs in her handkerchief as the
court broke up in excited groups. From the corner of her eye she saw
that Perat was studying her thoughtfully.
IV
Two weeks later, very late at "night", Perat lay stretched gloomily on
his sleeping couch. On the other side of the room Evelyn was curled
luxuriously on her own damasked lounge, her head propped high. She was
scanning some of the miniature stereop reels that Perat had brought
from his far-distant home planet.
"Those green trees and hedges ... so far away," she mused. "Do you ever
think about seeing them again?"
"Of late, I've been thinking about them quite a bit."
What did he mean by that?
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account