"What?" cried Joan, "Leave me out in this dark hole? I should say not."
"All right," he replied. He glanced again through the peep hole. The
woman was asleep. She lay on her side, her red hair turning the pillow
to blood. She still had on the abbreviated costume she had been wearing
on Mercury Sam's stage.
Jaro opened the panel, crawled into the room, Joan on his heels.
He went up to the bed, looked down at the sleeping woman. He thought
she looked hollow cheeked, unhappy in her sleep; nothing like the
flaming wanton who was known throughout the Universe as the Red Witch.
He touched her shoulder.
She opened her eyes. They were a vivid green. Recognition swept her
features.
V
"Jaro!" she cried, a note of fright in her voice. She jerked up, swung
her bare legs off the bed onto the floor. "What do you want? How did
you get here?" Those amazing green eyes flicked past him, discovered
Joan. She wasn't too frightened to raise her eyebrows.
"There are a few questions I'd like to ask," he replied coolly. "Just
who is behind this revolution?"
There was the faintest hesitancy in her reply. "Hodes. Who did you
think?"
He looked skeptical, waited.
She said, "You don't believe me? When I talked with you, I exaggerated
perhaps. But there is very much money involved, very much indeed.
Should the Mercurians be successful, they would take possession of
the Latonka Trust, the plantations, and the mines. The Earthmen would
be dispossessed. Naturally, they are very anxious to frustrate the
revolution."
"But the Mercurians are in the right," Joan burst out. She had been
swelling up like a toad in the effort to contain herself. "Albert Peet
and his kind, stole everything in the first place. They deserve to be
kicked out. Mercury has a right to self-government."
The Red Witch shrugged. "I'm not curious about the ethics. I'm paid by
the Earthmen, not the Mercurians. Are you with us or against us, Jaro?"