That seemed to convince the man that putting up a fight wasn’t a good idea.
The man slowly got off the bed.
“You can get dressed, but I’ll chill you and your friends in a heartbeat if you try anything.”
The one-eyed man nodded, seeming to accept his fate, or perhaps realizing that fighting back at the moment would be futile. Whatever the reason, he cooperated with them and began putting on his pants and boots. When Ryan was dressed, Grundwold picked up the man’s knife and blaster and led him out of the room, then down to the end of the hallway where a half-dozen sec men were waiting. As soon as they were in the stairwell, the door closed behind them and the sec men who’d been waiting on the stairs began tying the one-eyed man’s hands behind his back.
“Tie his legs, too,” Grundwold ordered. “Give him enough slack to walk, but not to run.”
“Where’s Lewis?” one of the sec men asked.
Grundwold shook his head.
The sec man, a friend of Lewis, stepped forward and threw a hard punch into the prisoner’s stomach. Ryan doubled over slightly, but recovered quickly. The sec man threw a second punch, fully catching the one-eyed man’s jaw. His head snapped left from the force of the blow, but he showed no signs of pain or fear.
Grundwold swung his arm in an arc and caught the sec man with the butt of his blaster before he could throw another punch. “Take it downstairs, before you wake up the rest of them,” Grundwold hissed. “We’ve still got one more breeder to catch.”
The sec man unclenched his fist and grabbed Ryan by the arm, pulling him hard down the stairs. The rope between the prisoner’s legs caused him to stumble, then fall down a whole flight of stairs.
The sec men picked him up by the arms, then dragged him the rest of the way down the stairs and out of the hotel.
“Fillinger!” Grundwold said. “Come with me.”
Grundwold and Fillinger reentered the hallway and began searching rooms for the other outlanders. Grundwold checked the third room on the left and found it empty. He looked back along the hall where Fillinger had just finished searching the second room on the right.
Fillinger shook his head. The room was empty.
Grundwold waited in the doorway of the room he’d just searched, his lovingly maintained Persuader trained at the man guarding the far door, who still hadn’t moved.
Fillinger opened the door to the third room on the right, directly across from where Grundwold was providing cover. He had the door halfway open when he stopped in his tracks and looked over at Grundwold and jabbed his thumb in the direction of the room.
Someone was sleeping in there.
Grundwold kept the Persuader trained on the guard as he moved across the hallway to join Fillinger. Then they entered the room together, with Grundwold again moving to the far side of the bed. When they were in place, Fillinger lowered the barrel of his remade longblaster onto the head of the sleeping outlander while Grundwold reached down to pull back the sheet covering the sleeper’s head.
It was truly Grundwold’s lucky day. Sleeping on the bed was the other breeder.
“Make a sound and you’re chilled,” Grundwold whispered in her ear.
She opened her mouth to let out a scream, and Fillinger pressed the blue-steel tip of his blaster even harder against the side of her head.
She closed her mouth and held her tongue.
“If you want to try your luck, you should have gone to the casino next door. We don’t play games,” Grundwold said. “Put on your boots. You’re going on a little trip.”
Flashing him a murderous look, but without making another sound, Mildred put on her boots.
Although she was fully clothed, Grundwold enjoyed the view of the breeder’s full, voluptuous figure, but didn’t allow the sight to make him careless. “We’ll take your blaster, thanks,” Grundwold said, picking up the target revolver from the table and tucking it into the waistband of his pants.
Grundwold and Fillinger each took hold of one of the woman’s arms and led her to the door. There was something about the look on the woman’s face that Grundwold didn’t like. She seemed to still want to fight back, and there was a good chance she might do something stupe like try to warn the others.