She didn't answer. Even before I spoke, her eyes had seen the correct
guess which had probably flashed naked and astounded in my own eyes.
And then she swallowed with a labored breath that went trembling down
inside her.
"There isn't anything to be ashamed of," I said gently. "Back on Earth
there's a lot of mixtures, you know. Some people even claim there's no
such thing as a pure race. I don't know, but I guess we all started
somewhere and intermarried plenty since."
She nodded. Somehow her eyes didn't look defiant any more.
"Where's his father?" I asked.
"H-he's dead."
"I'm sorry. Are you all right? I mean do you get along okay and
everything, now that...?"
I stopped. I wanted to ask her if she was starving by slow degrees and
needed help. Lord knows the careworn look about her didn't show it was
luxurious living she was doing--at least not lately.
"Look," I said suddenly. "Would you like to go home to Earth? I could
fix--"
But that was the wrong approach. Her eyes snapped and her shoulders
stiffened angrily and the words that ripped out of her mouth were not
coated with honey.
"Get the hell out of here, you fool!"
I blinked again. When the flame in her eyes suddenly seemed to grow
even hotter, I turned on my heel and went to the door. I opened it,
went out on the top slab step. I turned back to close the door--and
looked straight into her eyes.
She was crying, but that didn't mean exactly what it looked like it
might mean. Her right hand had the door edge gripped tightly and she
was swinging it with all the strength she possessed. And while I still
stared, the door slammed savagely into the casing with a shock that
jarred the slab under my feet, and flying splinters from the rotten
woodwork stung my flinching cheeks.
I shrugged and turned around and went down the steps. "And that is the
way it goes," I muttered disgustedly to myself. Thinking to be helpful
with the firewood problem, you give a woman a nice sharp axe and she
immediately puts it to use--on you.
I looked up just in time to avoid running into a spread-legged man who
was standing motionless directly in the middle of the sand-path in
front of the door. His hands were on his hips and there was something
in his eyes which might have been a leer.
* * * * *
"Pulled a howler in there, eh, mate?" he said. He chuckled hoarsely
in his throat. "Not being exactly deaf, I heard the tail end of it."
His chuckle was a lewd thing, a thing usually reserved--if it ever
was reserved at all--for the mens' rooms of some of the lower class
dives. And then he stopped chuckling and frowned instead and said
complainingly:
"Regular little spitfire, ain't she? I ask you now, wouldn't you think
a gal which had got herself in a little jam, so to speak, would be more
reasonable--"
His words chopped short and he almost choked on the final unuttered
syllable. His glance had dropped to my badge and the look on his face
was one of startled surprise.
"I--" he said.