"For what you are and what you carry. For fun. Even, perhaps, for food. Was this yours?"
She looked at the laser he held out to her.
"Yes. I drew it when they frightened me but one knocked it from my hand. Then I ran but they followed. If it hadn't been for you I would have been helpless." She shivered then said, "Please, will you take me home?"
Chapter Two
Her name was Sardia del Naeem and she lived in a small and luxurious apartment set on the slope of a hill in an area graced with flowering trees. A safe and protected place but not her home. That was on Tonge and she had come to Juba on business. Things she told Dumarest when preparing him a drink. Vanishing into the bathroom when he took it not so much, he guessed to remove the grime of the day as to lave away the recent contact with vileness.
"Earl!" Her voice rose above the gush of the shower. "When you said those men could have been after food-did you mean it?"
"Yes."
"Literally?" The roar of water died, her voice loud and strained in the contrasting silence. "To hunt and kill their own kind as if they hunted an animal?"
He said dryly, "Have you no slums on Tonge?"
"Slums, yes, but-"
"No desperate? No starving?"
"Perhaps, but nothing like the Maze. Surely it is unique."
"No." Dumarest sipped at his drink and tasted ice and astringent bitterness. "Take a world like this and you have a place like the Maze. One with the same or a different name but one holding the same dangers. Fools go into them for amusement. The wise stay well away."
"As I should have done?"
"Yes."
"And you, Earl?"
"I was on my way to the field."
"And so saved my life." There was a click as the shower door opened. "And now, Earl, please pour me a drink."
She stepped from the bathroom as he turned, the tall glass in his hand, and they stood facing each other in the warm intimacy of the chamber. She had changed, the fuzz of hair tamed now to rest in a thick, glistening tress of shimmering jet over one rounded shoulder, the strands held by a coil of gem-set gold. Her face was oval, the eyes pools of limpid brown fringed with a fan of lashes, her skin the hue of sun-kissed olives, a brownness which held the depth of chocolate, of creamed coffee, of leaves turning from russet to umber.
Her nostrils were flared a little, matching the fullness of the lips in betraying sensuality, the eyes enigmatic beneath their upswept brows. Her ears were small, the chin smoothly rounded, the neck a column of grace.
Beneath a simple gown of multicolored silk her figure held the ripeness of maturity.
A woman no longer young but one who moved with the grace of a trained dancer. One who smiled as she took the proffered glass then sobered as she stared with frank appraisal at her guest.
Taller than she was by almost a head, his body hard and firm beneath the long-sleeved, high-collared tunic he wore, the smooth grey plastic marred now by minute stains. His face was hard, lines and planes presenting a mask of iron determination, the mouth alone touched with sensitivity yet one which could easily become cruel. A man who had long since learned to live alone, to rely on no one but himself.
Would he, if starving, eat what came to hand?
"My lady, is the drink not to your liking?"
"Of course." She blinked and sipped aware of the path her thoughts had taken. One guided by his presence, the aura of masculinity he radiated and to which she felt herself respond. "Help yourself to another drink if you want."
She watched as he crossed to the table and added ice and water to the glass in his hand. It was hard to remember that only a short while ago he had killed; that the stains on his tunic and matching pants were dried blood, that the knife riding in one of the knee-high boots had cut and slashed and hurtled through the air to sink into yielding flesh. A knife fighter, she decided, such men knew better than to stab, and yet such men did not throw their blades. To do so would be to disarm themselves and, should the throw miss, death would be inevitable.
She said, as their eyes met, "You said you were on your way to the field. To join your ship?"
"To find one."
"To book passage?" Then, as he nodded, she added, "But why go through the Maze?"
"A shortcut." A lie, but it would serve and there was no need to explain that, in the winding streets, anyone following could be thrown off his trail. If anyone had been following. "And you?" He frowned as she told him. "To look for a man? In the Maze? At night?"
"I was stupid," she admitted. "But I was impatient to see him and I was armed and thought I could take care of myself."
"And?"
"I got lost in the alleys. I asked a man for directions-the small one called Feld. He said something obscene and touched me." Her free hand rose to her breasts. "I stepped back and drew the laser but he laughed and came toward me. I dodged and someone knocked the gun from my hand. The big man, I think. Then I ran."
And would have died had Dumarest not saved her.
He said, "You made a mistake. Once you drew the laser you should have used it."
"Killed without warning?"
"Why warn if you intend to kill? Why draw a weapon if you don't intend to use it?"
Simple rules and ones which, perhaps, governed his life, but she was used to a more gentle environment. Like a tamed dog she had bared her teeth hoping the sight would protect her, unwilling and unable to do more. A pathetic defense and useless against the predators she had met.
The things they could have done to her.
Ice tinkled in the glass as she emptied it with convulsive swallows, searching for the anodyne the alcohol would provide, meeting Dumarest's eyes as she lowered the container.
"It's over," he said quietly. "All over. Now you can forget it."
Men dead, blood spraying, the touch of claws at her throat. The thought of what could have happened-forget it?
Numbing she took the refilled glass Dumarest handed to her and drank and lowered it half-empty and then took a deep, shuddering breath. Was she a girl to be so afraid? A young and silly creature finding refuge in hysteria? Amil had died in her arms after his greatest performance, his heart bursting beneath the strain, blood seeping from between his lips, marring their last kiss. And Verecunda, after the leap, when she had fallen so badly and all had heard the ghastly splinter of bone- no, she was not a child!
Dumarest said, "Better now?"
"You think I am weak?"
"No, a woman who is human."
"A fool?"
"A person." He set down his own glass. "Is there anything I can do for you before I leave."