demonstration
stared at her. The others were silent a moment. Then one of the women said sharply, “Sams, she’s bluffing! You said she’s good, but between us all we certainly can block her as she strikes out. Then we can handle both of them as we wish.”Sams shook his head slowly. “I wouldn’t care to count on it.”
Dovari said in a strained voice, “Nor I! And I don’t want to die while you’re finding out whether you can, or can’t, block her. Let them go, Sams! If they try to interfere, you can still deal with them in some other manner.”
5
Trigger glanced back at the closed building door behind them. She looked both furious and relieved. “What do we do now?” she muttered.
“Keep walking,” Telzey said. “Back to the Regent’s palace. And we walk rather fast until we reach those trees ahead. I’ve still got my contacts back there. Some talk going on . . . Hatzel seems to be second in command to Sams. So he’s a teleport—” She glanced at Trigger. “Too bad you lost your gun.”
“That’s not all I lost.”
“Eh?”
“My underpants went with the gun.”
“Well,” Telzey said after a moment, “a minor demonstration, as Sams would say. A teleport at Hatzel’s level is a very dangerous person. He didn’t have to do that, of course. They were trying to make us feel helpless.”
Trigger nodded. “And it worked just fine with me! I’ve never felt more helpless in my life.” She looked over