She checked the public vidicom directory; if Pias had a vidicom set, he’d more than likely be listed. But there was no listing for anyone with the name Bavol. There were plenty of Dupres’, including seven Yvettes; in desperation Beti called them all. Three of them weren’t in; the rest were obviously not the woman she’d met as Pias’s fiancée.
Wracking her brain, Beti tried asking information from the Bureau of Public Records. If Pias and his Yvette had gotten married, there should be a certificate on file somewhere. A very kindly lady checked the entire file for her, but could find no marriage certificate issued to Pias Bavol. If Beti’s brother had gotten married, the ceremony had taken place somewhere other than DesPlaines.
By the time she’d received this negative information it was suppertime and most government offices had closed for the day; there would be nothing Beti could do until they opened again tomorrow. Feeling miserable and de pressed, she went to dinner at the small restaurant adjacent to the hotel. There, as she picked apathetically at her food, she tried to think of some other strategy for finding Pias.
Perhaps she could check with the transportation department and find out whether Pias had ever applied for a license to drive or fly a vehicle on DesPlaines. Perhaps she could check to see whether any business licenses had been granted in his name. And – though the thought horrified her – she supposed she should check the newsroll obituaries over the last few years to see whether he might have died here.
She considered taking out a personal ad in the local newsrolls, but discarded that thought as impractical. She couldn’t even be certain he was on this planet – and even if he was, the odds were greatly against his seeing the ad. Her funds were running very low after paying for passage on the Anatolia; she dared not waste her money on anything that offered such small chance of success.
She returned to her room and tried to get involved with the programs on the trivision and sensable, but she simply couldn’t concentrate. She’d pinned so many of her hopes on locating Pias quickly, and now she was feeling lost and helpless on a strange world, without friends or family to give her the support and encouragement she needed to carry on. She stared listlessly at the images in the trivision cabinet, then switched it off in frustration. Donning the nightgown she’d brought with her, she went to bed and, after tossing and turning for over an hour, finally fell asleep.
If she hadn’t been so nervous, her story might have ended there. But, edgy as she was, she awoke in the middle of the night to the strong feeling of danger and the certain knowledge that something was horribly wrong. Her heart fluttered in an irregular rhythm as she tried to bring her mind fully awake so she could focus on the problem.
The room was almost pitch black; the heavy curtains cut out all but a fraction of the street lights outside the hotel. There was no smell of smoke, so it wasn’t the threat of a fire that had awakened her. She strained her eyes against the darkness and, at the same time, held her breath so she wouldn’t miss the slightest sound that might alert her to the trouble.
There it was, a faint scratching noise at the door. Someone was working quietly on the lock, trying to break into her room. With that realization came the certain knowledge that this was not some ordinary hotel sneak thief. This could only be someone hired by her brother Tas to bring her back to Newforest before she could talk to Pias – or to kill her.
Her first impulse was to grab the com unit beside the bed and call hotel security, but then she heard the faint click of the lock opening. She could be very, very dead before security managed to send someone up here.
She reached under her pillow and grabbed the hilt of her knife, kept there for just such emergencies. Then, pushing the bedcovers aside, she slid silently across the room to take up a position behind the opening door. The intruder was moving slowly and carefully, trying not to make any sound that would alarm his victim.
This gave Beti time to brace herself for the action that was to come.
The few seconds that she stood there in the dark stretched out immeasurably, and her heart was pounding so violently in her chest she was sure it would alert the intruder to her presence. Her hand trembled slightly. She held the knife point upward as she’d been trained to do, and was grateful that it was considered necessary for everyone in the Gypsy culture of Newforest to learn how to fight with a knife, even female members of the nobility.
As the door opened slowly, a ribbon of light streamed in from the hall outside. At first Beti could see nothing from her position, but she heard the unmistakable hum of a stun-gun and supposed her would-be attacker had fired at the tangle of covers on the bed, thinking she was asleep there. Then, perhaps feeling a little more confident, the intruder opened the door wider and stepped in side the room.
Beti forced herself to wait until she had a clear view of him before she acted. Then, taking two quick steps for ward, she brought her knife up hard under the man’s ribs. For all her practice at knife fighting, this was the first time she had actually stabbed anyone, and it was a jolt to feel the impact of her knife digging through living flesh. She had no time, though, to be shocked by what she’d done. Her only thought was to kill, or at least incapacitate, this man who’d meant to do her harm.
The man gave a gasp of surprise and pain as the blow hit, and turned awkwardly to look at his assailant. He tried to shift position and shoot her but the shock of the stab wound was too much. The gun dropped from his hand and he crumpled to the floor, nearly taking Beti’s knife with him. Only her nervously tight grip on the handle enabled her to pull the blade out as the man fell.
A hand grabbed her shoulder from behind, and Beti realized with horror that the intruder had not been alone. She whirled and slashed the man who’d grabbed her. A line of blood appeared across his forehead and he yelled with pain, letting go of her. But Beti could see the silhouette of a third man behind him, and her heart fell as she realized she would have a very difficult time escaping from this trap.
She pushed hard at her second attacker, knocking him against the doorframe. Sidestepping him and crossing the threshold, she approached the third man and swung her knife at him. The blade didn’t come near him, but he backed away, seeing what she’d done to his companions. His small retreat gave her enough of an opening to run past him and down the hallway. Beti raced down the carpeted corridor, yelling for help at the top of her lungs. She didn’t really expect anyone to open their doors, but maybe someone in one of the rooms would call security – if only to complain about the shrieking madwoman who was ruining their sleep.
The third man must have been the most heavily armed, because a blaster bolt sizzled the air and missed the fleeing woman by just a few centimeters. The second man hissed, “Not in here, you fool,” and the blasterfire stopped, but that one shot had lent great speed to Beti’s feet. As the two men started in pursuit, Beti turned a corner in the hallway and started looking for a way out.
At the end of this hallway was a door marked as a fire exit. On high-grav worlds like DesPlaines, buildings were seldom more than two Stories tall and this hotel was no exception. Beti’s room was on the second floor, with a series of stairs serving as an emergency route to the ground. Beti practically flew through the door, but went down the stairs cautiously. Natives of a high-grav planet learned to deal carefully with any changes in elevation; even a short fall could mean broken bones at the least, possibly even death. Beti did not want to let her assailants accomplish their mission by default.
The would-be killers came through the second-floor door just as Beti reached ground level. The one with the blaster shot again. His beam burned into the exit door just as Beti was reaching for it. She barely hesitated. Yanking the door open, she raced outside into the cool night air.
Beti found herself in a darkened alley that ran alongside the hotel. The ground was cold and damp against her bare feet. She paused for an instant to get her bearings. The main street lay to her left, about thirty meters away. Taking a deep breath, she ran toward the street and bumped into a stack of boxes that was standing in the darkness at the side of the alley. She cursed at the pain as she bruised herself, then began running once more for the street. Her feet made a light padding sound as she ran, a counterpoint to her harsh gasps for breath.