‘Oh, thanks … I hadn’t …’ she stared into his eyes for moments, as if trying to decide whether he really meant it or was merely being polite; then, deciding that he did mean it, she closed her eyes, let her head sink down onto his shoulder, and began to purr blissfully; still matching perfectly whatever motions he chose to make.
In a few minutes, however, they heard a partially-stifled shriek and a soprano voice, struggling with laughter, rang out.
‘Vesta!’
‘Yes,Babs?’
‘What do you do about this tail-tickling business? I never had to cope with anything like that before!’
‘Bite him!’ Vesta called back, loudly enough for half the room to hear. ‘Bite him good and hard, on the end of the tail, if you can’t catch the tail, bite his ear. Bite it good.’
‘Bite him? Why, I couldn’t—not possibly/’
‘Well, then give him the knee, or clout him a good, solid tunk on the nose. Or better yet; tell him you won’t dance with him any more—he’ll be good.’
‘Now you tell us what to do about tail-ticklers,’ Cloud said then. ‘S’pose I’d take a good bite at your ear?’
Td bite you right back,’ said Vesta, gleefully, ‘and I bet you’d taste just as nice as you smell.’
The dance went on, and Cloud finally, by the aid of both Vesta and Zamke, did finally manage to get one dance with Joan. And, as he had known he would, he enjoyed it immensely. So did she.
‘Having fun, chum? I never saw you looking so starry-eyed before.’
‘Oh, brother!’ she breathed. ‘To say that I was never the belle of the ball in my schooldays is the understatement of the
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century, but here … can you imagine it, Storm, me actually outshining Barbara Benton and Helen Worthington both at once?’
‘Sure I can. I told you …’
‘Of course it’s probably because their own women are so big that I’m a sort of curiosity,’ she rushed on, ‘but whatever the reason, this dance is going down in my memory book in great big letters in the reddest ink I can find!’
‘Good for you—hail the conquering heroine!’ he applauded. ‘It’ll do you good to have your ego inflated a little. But what do you do about this tail-tickling routine?’
‘Oh, I grab their tails’—with her sense of perception she could, of course—’and when they try to wiggle them free I wiggle back at them, like this,’ she demonstrated, ‘and we have a perfectly wonderful time.’
‘Wow! I’ll bet you do—and when I get you home, you shameless…”
‘Sorry, Storm, my friend,’ the big Vegian who cut in wasn’t sorry at all, and he and Cloud both knew it. ‘You can dance with Joan any time and we can’t. So loosen all clamps, friend. Grab him, Vzelkt!’
Vzelkt grabbed. So, in about a minute, did another Vegian girl; and then after a few more minutes, it was Vesta’s turn again. No other girl could dance with him more than once, but Vesta, by some prearranged priority, could have him once every ten minutes.
‘Where’s your brother, Vesta?’ he asked once. ‘I haven’t seen him for an hour.’
‘Oh, he had to go back to the police station. They’re all excited and working all hours. They’re chasing Public Enemy Number One—a Tellurian, they think he is, named Fairchild— why?’ as Cloud started, involuntarily, in the circle of her arm. ‘Do you know him?’
‘I know of him, and that’s enough.’ Then, in thought: ‘Did you get that, Nordquist?’
‘I got it.’ Cloud was, as the Lensman had said that he would be, under surveillance every second. ‘Of course, this one may not be Fairchild, since there are three or four other suspects in other places, but from the horrible time we and the Vegians both are having, trying to locate this bird, I’m coming to think he is.’
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The dance went on until, some hours later, there was an unusual tumult and confusion at the door.
‘Oh, the police are calling Vesta—something has happened!’ his companion exclaimed. ‘Let’s rush over—oh, hurry!’
Cloud hurried; but, as well as hurrying, he sent his sense of perception on ahead, and meshed his mind imperceptibly with Vesta’s as well.
Her mind was a queerly turbid, violently turbulent mixture of emotions: hot with a furiously passionate lust for personal, tooth-and-claw revenge; at the same time icily cold with the implacable, unswervable resolve of the dedicated, remorseless, and merciless killer.
‘Are you sure, beyond all doubt, that this is the garment of my brother’s slayer?’ Vesta was demanding.
‘I am sure,’ the Vegian policeman replied. ‘Not only did Zambkptkn hold it pierced by the first and fourth fingers of his left hand—the sign positive, as you know—but an eyewitness verified the scent and furnished descriptions. The slayer was dressed as an Aldebaranian, which accounts for the size of the garment your brother could seize before he died; his four bodyguards as Tellurians, with leather belts and holsters for their blasters.’
‘QX.’ Vesta accepted a pair of offered shears and began to cut off tiny pieces of the cloth. As each piece began to fall it was seized in mid-air by a Vegian man or girl who immediately ran away with it. And in the meantime other Vegians, forming into a long line, ran past Vesta, each taking a quick sniff and running on, out into the street. Cloud, reaching outside the building with his perceptors, saw that all vehicular traffic had paused. A Vegian stood on the walk-way, holding a bit of cloth pinched between thumb and finger-nail. All passersby, on foot or in any kind of vehicle, would pause, sniff at the cloth, and—apparently —go on about their business.
But Cloud, after reading Vesta’s mind and the policeman’s, turned as white as his space-tan would permit. In less than an hour almost every Vegian in that city of over eight million would know the murderer by scent and would be sniffing eagerly for him; and when any one of them did find him …
Except for the two Vegians and the six Tellurians, the vast hall was now empty. Vesta was holding a pose Cloud had never
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before seen—stiffly erect, with her tail wrapped tightly around her body.
‘Can they get a scent—a reliable scent, I mean—that fast?’ Cloud asked.
‘Zertainly,’ Vesta’s voice was cold, level, almost uninfleeted. ‘How long would it take you to learn that an egg you started to eat was rotten? The man who wore this shirt is a class A Triple Prime stinker—his odor is recognizable instantly and anywhere.’
‘But as to the rest of it—don’t do this thing, Vesta! Let the law handle it.’
‘The law comes second. He killed my brother; it is my right and my privilege to kill him …’
Cloud became conscious of the fact that Joan was in his mind. ‘You been here all along?’ he flashed.
‘In or near. You and I are one, you know,’ and Vesta’s voice went on:
‘… and besides, the law is merciful. Its death is instant. Under my claws and teeth he will live for hours—for a full day, I hope.’
‘But officer, can’t you do something?’
‘Nothing. The law comes second. As she has said, it is her right and her privilege.’
‘But it’s suicide, man—sheer suicide. You know that, don’t you?’
‘Not necessarily. She will not be working alone. Whether she lives or dies, however, it is still her right and her privilege.’
Cloud switched to thought. ‘Nordquist, you can stop this if you want to. Do it.’
‘I can’t, and you know I can’t. The Patrol does not and cannot interfere in purely planetary affairs.’
‘You intend, then,’ Cloud demanded furiously, ‘to let this girl put her naked hands and teeth up against four trigger-happy gunnies with DeLameters?’
‘Just that. There’s nothing else I or any other Patrolman can do. To interfere in this one instance would alienate half the planets of Civilization and set the Patrol back five hundred years.’
‘Well, even though I’m a Patrolman—of sorts—/ can do something about it!’ Cloud blazed, ‘and by God, I will!’
‘We will, you mean, and we will, too.’ Joan’s thought came
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forcibly at first, then became dubious: ‘That is, if it doesn’t mean getting you blasted, too.’
‘Just what?’ Nordquist’s thought was sharp. ‘Oh, I see … and, being a Vegian, as well as a Patrolman, and the acknowledged friend of both the dead man and his sister …’
‘Who’s a Vegian?’ Cloud demanded.
‘You are, and so are the other five of your group, as you would have been informed if the party had not been broken up so violently. Honorary Vegians, for life.”
‘Why, I never heard of such a thing!’ Joan exclaimed, ‘and I studied them for years!’
“No, you never did,’ Nordquist agreed. ‘There haven’t been many honorary Vegians, and to my certain knowledge, not one of them has ever talked. Vegians are very strongly pyschic in picking their off-world friends.’