I was stronger now, more accustomed to the gravity, and it didn't
bother me unless I had to stand for long periods of time. I turned in
the doorway to look at Ven. She had the helmet on again and her aura
was a crackling red. I shook my head. Edith was due for a bad time when
the effects of that hydrocarbon wore off.
I had hardly fallen into light estivation when Ven's projection crashed
through my antennae.
"Eu! Get up! Come here quickly!"
With a groan I came slowly back to full facility and ran to the control
room. Ven's face was filled with panic.
"They're coming up here," she said. "A whole carful of them!"
"Who?"
"Edith's drunken friends! Somehow she's collected six of them and
they're driving up here to spit in my eye!"
Despite myself, I laughed. Ven looked so outraged I couldn't help it.
"We can close the airlock," I said, "and they can't tell us from a
rock."
"I won't! I'm going to teach that girl a lesson she won't forget in a
hurry! I've listened to myself being insulted for two hours--and she's
still going strong. When she gets up here I'll show her whose eye
she'll spit in!"
* * * * *
Ven was raging. I'd never seen her so emotional before. Her aura
swelled and ebbed in ruddy shades as her breath came and went in short
gasps.
"And how do you propose to do that?" I asked.
"I'll stat her!" Ven raged. "I'll stat every one of them!"
I blinked. "I wouldn't do that," I said mildly. "What can we do with
them? The two we have are bad enough. And if you stat them, we'll have
to kill or condition them. We couldn't let them go home with a story
like the one they'd tell."
"I don't care," Ven said. "You can do what you like about the rest
of them, but that Edith is going to learn a lesson." She was being
emotional and quite unwilling to listen to reason--and she was larger
and stronger than I. Despite my protests, she jerked a stat projector
from the rack and strode toward the open airlock.
"Thalassa!" she exclaimed. "They're coming through the gate! They'll be
here in a minute."
I could hear the roar of a protesting engine groaning up the trail to
the lower meadow as I hurried after Ven. As I reached the airlock, the
gray body of Donald's station wagon poked its nose around the trees
below our ship.
Ven stood rigidly in the airlock, waiting, her lips tight and her eyes
narrow. She took a firmer grip on the stat as the car stopped and the
giggling, half-sober humans tumbled out. I was in a quandary. I didn't
want Ven to shoot, but I couldn't close the airlock with her inside it.
So I stood, hesitating while the group of gaily dressed mammals came
toward us through the trees, their high voices loud in the stillness.
"Gotta find that li'l lizard an tell her to stop meddling with my
life," Edith's voice came to my ears.
Ven stiffened beside me as the group broke out of the trees in front of
the ship.
"Why, Edie, it's beautiful!" a voice said. "It's a fairy glen! No
wonder you'd never tell us where you got that suntan! And that big
rock--it's just like you said--And--uh!" The voice never finished as
Ven pressed the trigger.
I looked down at the six crumpled mammalian bodies and the lone
standing figure that looked stupidly up at us.
"Well," I said. "You've done it this time. Now are you satisfied?
"No," Ven said. "Not half." Her voice was tight with anger. She looked
down at Edith. "Come here!" she said.
"Dowanna," Edith replied uncertainly. "You've made Don leave me. I
don't like you." But habit was stronger than alcohol and under the
furious lash of Ven's voice she came unsteadily forward.
"Do you understand me, you little sarf!" Ven snapped icily. "I said
_come here_!" She took the control box from her waist and viciously
twisted the intensity dial to maximum. At this range its force was
irresistible, even with alcohol-deadened synapses. Edith shuddered and
moved toward us, her hands clumsily tearing at the fabric that covered
her.
"I'm comin'! You don' hafta shout. I ain't deaf. I ain't done nothin'!"
She sat down beside the airlock and struggled out of her clothing,
ripping the thin fabric under the last of Ven's anger until she was
completely naked. Then she stood up and reached her hands toward Ven.
"You're not going to try to ride her while she's in that condition?" I
said.
"This is my affair," Ven replied grimly. "I'm going to get this
settled."