Her face went limp and she stood swaying drunkenly as the needle in the
ring popped her skin.
The Commander, his face as dead as hers, disconnected his hand and
sheathed the needle carefully again. He drew one of his guns, shot her
through the heart and walked out of the apartment.
Old fool! She should have known better.
* * * * *
Max Wyman stumbled through the tangle of Riveredge, his head a pot of
molten lead and his legs twitching under him as he fled from his shame.
Dimly, as if with new eyes, he saw that he was not alone. Riveredge was
technically uninhabited. Then what voices called guardedly to him from
the shadows: "Buddy--buddy--wait up a minute, buddy--did you score? Did
you score?"
He lurched on and the voices became bolder. The snaking conveyors and
ramps sliced out sectors of space. Storage tanks merged with inflow
mains to form sheltered spots where they met. No spot was without its
whining, appealing voice. He stood at last, quivering, leaning against a
gigantic I-beam that supported a heavy-casting freightway. A scrap sheet
of corrugated iron rested against the bay of the I-beam, and the sheet
quivered and fell outward. An old man's voice said: "You're beat, son.
Come on in."
He staggered a step forward and collapsed on a pallet of rags as
somebody carefully leaned the sheet back into place again.