Shel Lur came back in again. Without emotion, she looked at Marcia
clasped in Sean's arms, said tonelessly:
"Good. You will not run away again."
Marcia turned her head to stare at the Krak woman. Sean's eyes were
thoughtful.
* * * * *
Sean McKenna awoke suddenly, jarred from sleep by an almost tangible
thought. Half-awake, the fingers of his mind reached into his dream and
tried to form it into wakeful reality.
Almost, he thought bitterly. I almost had it. He'd been dreaming about
his attempts to destroy a Krak, living it over again, and for a single
fleeting moment, he would have sworn he found the chink in the Krak
armor of invulnerability. Then it was gone.
Over in the opposite corner, Marcia stirred. Nightmare, probably, but
who wouldn't have a nightmare? But that dream, so real and in it he had
been so sure of the Krak's vulnerability. And now that was gone.
He drifted off to sleep again.
When he awakened, he was surprised. It had not been by Shel Lur's
dainty hoof. Rubbing the sleep from his eyes, he turned toward Marcia's
corner.
Instantly he was on his feet. She was gone! He darted from the bare
room, through the door into Shel Lur's chamber.
Striding into the center of the Krak's sleeping chamber, Sean McKenna
halted abruptly, almost as if he had bumped up against an unseen,
immovable force.
A woman's laughter, dancing on joyous toes, stopped him. Marcia's
laughter! Then his heart froze into a lump of dry ice within his chest.
Only for fleeting moments had that laughter been joyous, now it was a
mad, maudlin thing, twisted by the frightening fingers of hysteria.
Sean sprinted across the huge sleeping room, blasted through the door
of the dressing chamber.
Marcia, her tiny body a limp blob lay on the cold floor, mad laughter
dripping from her lips.
Shel Lur sat impassively in the high-backed bench, a wig of human hair
fixed on her head, her dark eyes staring at him. Around her neck was a
necklace of black triangular shaped stones that winked evilly in the
sullen light of the sun.
Sean tried to comfort the sobbing, screaming Marcia, but her soft face
was twisted and torn with frightful agony and her tiny red mouth still
burbled raucous laughter.
Sean turned coldly to Shel Lur.
"What have you done?" he lipped, his green eyes stabbing flame.
Shel Lur stared at him impassively, her wide-lipped mouth lax.
It was then that Sean felt that latent hope for the Krak's
vulnerability flare in his heart.
Shel Lur was dead.
His quick mind spun through a million queries. How had she died? Was it
a Krak's ordinary death? What had happened to cast the life from her?
Sean looked down at Marcia's contorted, writhing body.
His answer lay there.
With a cold mind, Sean bent down, jerked Marcia roughly to her feet.
His strong palm lashed out, once, twice in snapping blows to Marcia's
soft cheeks. The girl whimpered at the first blow; at the second, her
sobbing slowed; and at the third, a semblance of intelligence brought a
spark to her blue eyes.
* * * * *
Sean held her shoulders gripped tightly in his hands. He shook her
gently.
"Marcia," he said softly. "Marcia."
Marcia's eyes reached up to his. She said dully:
"It was awful, Sean." Then she was in his arms sobbing. Sean let the
sobbing run its course, though his mind was champing to ask her what
happened. The hysteria was gone from her voice finally when she said:
"I killed her, Sean, with the touch of my hand." She held up the tiny
hand with the long tapering fingers and flexed it.
"Marcia." Sean forced himself to speak slowly. "How did you kill her?
What spot did you touch?"
He was breathless. He'd been right after all, there was a vulnerable
spot on the Krak's invulnerable body. Was it the same spot he'd thought
from his battle with Klash?
Marcia spoke quickly: "I don't know, Sean. She woke me, gave me that
wig, told me to fix her head like mine. I did it, only I drew two
strands of the hair down under her chin and tied it in a bow.
"It didn't look quite right, so I put my hands on her shoulders and
drew the bow wider. But it looked so funny under her chin, I laughed
and pushed against her to keep from falling."
"Where did you touch her?"
"I don't remember, Sean, I don't remember. Anyway, right then her whole
face twisted into awful knots and her throat worked as if she couldn't
get enough air to breath. Her face turned white and then blue and back
to pink again.
"Her face, o-o-oh, it was terrible looking and frightened me so much,"
Marcia pushed closer to Sean, her tiny arms twisted tightly about him.
Sean was unaware of Marcia's warm body pressing against him.
For he was remembering.
It was only a tickle at first, then it grew and bubbled and the
laughter pushed Sean's mouth open. The chink! His mind was shrieking.
I've found it!
He laughed until the tears ran down his cheeks. It was the first time
in many weeks that Sean McKenna had laughed like that--full-throated
and joyous.
Abruptly, he sobered.
"Marcia," he said. "Help me dump Shel Lur into a laundry hamper. We'll
have to get her out of here. Get her to where other Earth people,
Mike and the rest of them, may see her--a dead Krak. An unkillable,
unburnable Krak, dead violently. Then they will listen to me."
Marcia raised puzzled eyes to him.
"But what part of her did I touch to kill her?"
"No time for explanations. Only this much. It's you the Earth should
thank for finding the chink in the Krak's armor. The answer was there,
but me, I was the guy who couldn't see the trees for the forest."
As he talked, Sean was dragging the tall plastic clothes hamper to the
side of the dead Shel Lur.
It strained every muscle of Sean's lean tough body to transfer Shel
Lur's bulk from the high-backed bench to the hamper. Marcia brought
some soiled clothes that they arranged around Shel Lur's body, doubled
up in the hamper.
The thick plastic rollers squeaked under the weight as he worked it to
the hallway outside Shel Lur's apartments, Marcia trailing behind him.
The two Krak guards flicked their eyes at them, but remained impassive.
It was nothing unusual to see an Earthling delivering clothes to the
laundry.
Sean masked the effort as he trundled the hamper by the guards. It
might arouse suspicions if they thought he was disclosing undue stress.
He was sweating as he worked the hamper step by step down the long
stairway leading to the street. He was desperately afraid that the
hamper would overbalance and topple Shel Lur's body out on the landing
before the two guards near the main gate. But Marcia strained her tiny
body against the hamper, relieving some of the drag.
The Kraks did not even glance at them. Outside with the door closed,
Sean straightened, blew a breath of relief through his tight lips.
Of a sudden, Marcia pulled his head, kissed him firmly on the lips.
Sean jerked away abruptly.
"Don't you like me?" she asked petulantly. "I like you."
"How about Mike?"
Marcia shrugged. For a moment, Sean wanted to take her tiny body and
shake some sense into it; but then he remembered that it was she who
had given him the key to the enigma of the Krak's invulnerability.
Trust a woman to find a man's Achilles heel! He grinned wryly, and
asked:
"Which way to Mike's laundry?" Marcia pointed, still pouting a little.
* * * * *
Mike saw them first as they pushed the hamper into the spraying room.
His dark face, the dark hair crowning it like a thick cap, lighted at
the sight of Marcia, and harshened when he saw Sean.
Mike moved quickly toward them, his eyes fixed on Marcia's face. His
arms were outstretched. Sean was looking at Marcia out of the corner of
his green eyes. At Mike's approach she moved closer to Sean, tugged at
his arm.
"Marcia!" Mike said, and his voice carried his heart with it. "I was
scared stiff when they took you. How...?" Mike's dark eyes saw Marcia's
fingers flexing on Sean's arm.
He took a step forward, his bulging muscles rippling, his dark eyes
snapping. Sean, wordlessly, dumped over the hamper.
Shel Lur's body spilling out on the damp floor stopped him instantly.
Mike O'Hara stared at the body of the Krak, then at Sean's smiling lips.
"Dead." Sean's voice was quiet.
"Dead?"
Their soft voices brought other Earthlings crowding from the various
parts of the spraying room. They, too, stared at the dead bulk of the
pink-skinned Krak.
"How?" Mike breathed the word like a prayer.