"Right here," I said.
I reached into my breast pocket and brought out a stubby automatic and
shot her through the right arm. Her closed hand opened and a little
derringer clanked on the floor. She gaped at me with an expression of
horrified surprise that should have been recorded permanently; it
would have served as a model for generations of actors and actresses.
"You--brought back a weapon!" she gasped. "You shot me!" She stared
vacantly at her bleeding arm and then at my automatic. "But you
can't--bring anything back from the future. And you aren't--dying of
malnutrition."
She said it all in a voice shocked into toneless wonder.
"The food I ate and this gun are from the present," I said. "The
people of the future knew I was coming. They gave me food that
wouldn't vanish from my cells when I returned. They also gave me
the gun instead of the plans for the Dynapack."
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
"And you took it?" she screamed at me. "You idiot! I'd have shared the
profits honestly with you. You'd have been worth millions!"
"With acute malnutrition," I amended. "I like it better this way,
thanks--poor, but alive. Or relatively poor, I should say, because
you've been very generous and I appreciate it."
"By shooting me!"
"I hated to puncture that lovely arm, but it wasn't as painful as
starving or getting shot myself. Now if you don't mind--or even if you
do--it's your turn to get into the cage, Miss Roberts."
She tried to grab for the derringer on the floor with her left hand.
"Don't bother," I said quietly. "You can't reach it before a bullet
reaches you."
* * * * *
She straightened up, staring at me for the first time with terror in
her eyes.
"What are you going to do to me?" she whispered.
"I could kill you as easily as you could have killed me. Kill you and
send your body into some other era. How many dozens of deaths were you
responsible for? The law couldn't convict you of them, but I can. And
I couldn't be convicted, either."
She put her hand on the wound. Blood seeped through her fingers as she
lifted her chin at me.
"I won't beg for my life, Weldon, if that's what you want. I could
offer you a partnership, but I'm not really in a position to offer it,
am I?"
She was magnificent, terrifyingly intelligent, brave clear through ...
and deadlier than a plague. I had to remember that.
"Into the cage," I said. "I have some friends in the future who have
plans for you. I won't tell you what they are, of course; you didn't
tell me what I'd go through, did you? Give my friends my fondest
regards. If I can manage it, I'll visit them--and you."
She backed warily into the cage. It would have been pleasant to kiss
those wonderful lips good-by. I'd thought about them for a whole
month, wanting them and loathing them at the same time.
It would have been like kissing a coral snake. I knew it and I
concentrated on shutting the gate on her.
"You'd like to be rich, wouldn't you, Weldon?" she asked through the
mesh.
"I can be," I said. "I have the machine. I can send people into the
past or future and make myself a pile of dough. Only I'd give them
food to take along. I wouldn't kill them off to keep the secret to
myself. Anything else on your mind?"
"You want me," she stated.