Amanda started around the bed to the phone on the night table between their two beds, but the blond moved faster and blocked her way.
“We don’t want to get physical,” he said to Amanda, “but we’ve got a job to do and we’re going to do it.”
“How rough we get depends on you,” said the darker man, grinning at Amanda.
She stared at them, wide eyed, somewhere between confusion and terror.
The blond took another step toward Amanda. “Come along now, honey. We don’t want to hurt anybody.”
Mandy stumbled back, away from him. Pancho saw that both men were focused on her. She swiftly bent down and peeled Elly from her ankle.
“Here, wiseass,” Pancho said as she hurled the bright blue snake at the blond.
He turned just fast enough to see the krait sailing in lunar slow motion toward his face. Instinctively he raised his arm to shield himself.
“What the hell!”
Elly bounced off the guy’s arm and fell to the floor. She reared up, hissing angrily.
“Jesus Christ, what is it?”
The buzz cut was tugging at something inside his jacket. Pancho chopped at the back of his neck and he sagged to the floor. Elly slithered toward him. The blond seemed frozen with fright, staring at the snake.
Pancho gestured to Amanda, who stepped past the goggle-eyed blond and came to her side.
The guy on the floor pushed himself up on one elbow and saw the snake rearing a bare ten centimeters in front of his face, its beady eyes staring at him.
“Aaaggh,” he moaned.
The blond pulled a small pistol from the holster beneath his jacket. Pancho saw that his hand was shaking badly.
“Loud noises annoy her,” she said. “Just be quiet and don’t move.”
The blond glanced at her, then returned his stare to the snake. The buzz cut was sweating as Elly stood before him, her tongue flicking in and out.
“D-do something,” he whispered hoarsely.
“Better drop your gun on the bed,” said Pancho to the blond. “If you shoot and miss her, she’ll bite him for sure.”
The blond tossed the gun onto the bed. “Get it out of here,” he pleaded.
Pancho started to lean forward, slowly, carefully, bending toward Elly. But the buzz cut’s nerve broke. He swung blindly at the snake and tried to scramble to his feet. Elly sank her fangs into the meaty side of his hand.
He screamed and sagged back to the floor, unconscious. Pancho bent over and scooped Elly up, careful to hold her so the krait couldn’t twist and bite her.
“He’ll be dead in an hour ‘less you get the antiserum into him,” Pancho said quickly.
The blond stared at his partner helplessly.
“Take him to the hospital!” Pancho shouted.
She headed for her travel bag, still on her bed, next to the blond’s discarded gun. Still holding Elly, she rummaged in the bag until she found the vial of antiserum and tossed it to the blond.
“Get him to the hospital! Now! Tell ’em what happened and give ’em this. It’s the antiserum.”
Then she grabbed her still-open travel bag and headed for the door. Amanda came right behind her, then rushed back in to get her own bag. As they hurried down the corridor together, Pancho glanced back over her shoulder and saw the blond lugging his unconscious partner in the other direction, toward the hospital.
“Good girl, Elly,” she said. The krait had wrapped itself contentedly around Pancho’s wrist.
When they got to the spaceport tunnel Dan Randolph was pacing angrily.
“Where the hell have you been? We’re running late.”
“I’ll tell you all about it, boss,” Pancho said as they climbed aboard the cart.
“It’s Martin,” Amanda said, her voice low.
“Humphries?” asked Dan.
“He wants Mandy, and I think he knows we’re tryin’ to get out of here.”
“What the hell happened?” Dan demanded.
Pancho told him as the automated cart rode down the tunnel to the spaceport.
Martin Humphries sat at his desk, staring coldly at the frightened, worried face of the blond security agent. The man was sweating and nervously brushing at his moustache with a fingertip.
“So you let her get away,” Humphries said, after the man had explained his failure for the third time.