Chapter III

Perat lay on his couch, sipping cold purple _terif_ and following the thinly-clad dancer with narrowed eyes. Music, soft and subtle, floated from his communications box, illegally tuned to an officer's club somewhere. Evelyn made the rhythm part of her as she swayed slowly on tiptoe.

For the last thirty "nights"--the hours allotted to rest and sleep--it had been thus. By "day" she probed furtively into the minds of the office staff, memorizing area designations, channels for official messages, and the names and authorizations of occupational field crews. By night she danced for Perat, who never took his eyes from her, nor his probe from her mind. While she danced it was not too difficult to elude the probe. There was an odd autohypnosis in dancing that blotted out memory and knowledge.

"Enough for now," he ordered. "Careful of your rib."

When he had first seen the bandages on her bare chest, that first night, she had been ready with a memory of dancing on a freshly waxed floor, and of falling.

Perat seemed to be debating with himself as she sat down on her own couch to rest. He got up, unlocked his desk, and drew out a tiny reel of metal wire, which Evelyn recognized as being feed for an amateur stereop projector. He placed the reel in a projector that had been installed in the wall, flicked off the table luminar, and both of them waited in the dark, breathing rather loudly.

Suddenly the center of the room was bright with a ball of light some two feet in diameter, and inside the luminous sphere were an old man, a woman, and a little boy of about four years. They were walking through a luxurious garden, and then they stopped, looked up, and waved gaily.

Evelyn studied the trio with growing wonder. The old man and the boy were complete strangers. _But the woman--!_

"That is Phaen, my father," said Perat quietly. "He stayed at home because he hated war. And that is a path in our country estate on Tharn-R-VII. The little boy I fail to recognize, beyond a general resemblance to the Tharn line.

"But--_can you deny that you are the woman_?"

The stereop snapped off, and she sat wordless in the dark.

"There seemed to be some similarity--" she admitted. Her throat was suddenly dry. Yet, why should she be alarmed? She really didn't know the woman.

The table luminar was on now, and Perat was prowling hungrily about the room, his scar twisting his otherwise handsome face into a snarling scowl.

"Similarity! Bah! That loop of hair over her right forehead hid a scar identical to yours. I have had the individual frames analyzed!"

Evelyn's hands knotted unconsciously. She forced her body to relax, but her mind was racing. This introduced another variable to be controlled in her plan for destruction. She _must_ make it a known quantity.

"Did your father send it to you?" she asked.

"The day before you arrived here. It had been en route for months, of course."

"What did he say about it?"

"He said, 'Your widow and son send greetings. Be of good cheer, and accept our love.' What nonsense! He knows very well I'm not married and that--well, if I have ever fathered any children, I don't know about them."

"Is that all he said?"

"That's all, except that he included this ring." He pulled one of the duplicate jewels from his right middle finger and tossed it to her. "It's identical to the one he had made for me when I entered on my majority. For a long time it was thought that it was the only stone of its kind on all the planets of the Tharn suns, a mineralogical freak, but I guess he found another. But why should I want two of them?"

Evelyn crossed the room and returned the ring.

"Existence is so full of mysteries, isn't it?" murmured Perat. "Sometimes it seems unfortunate that we must pass through a sentient phase on our way to death. This foolish, foolish war. Maybe the old count was right."

"You could be courtmartialed for that."

"Speaking of courtmartials, I've got to attend one tonight--an appeal from a death sentence." He arose, smoothed his hair and clothes, and poured another glass of _terif_. "Some fool inquisitor can't show proper disposition of a woman prisoner."

Evelyn's heart skipped a beat. "Indeed?"

"The wretch insists that he could remember if we would just let him alone. I suppose he took a bribe. You'll find one now and then who tries for a little extra profit."

She must absolutely not be seen by the condemned inquisitor. The stimulus would almost certainly make him remember.

"I'll wait for you," she said indifferently, thrusting her arms out in a languorous yawn.

"Very well." Perat stepped to the door, then turned and looked back at her. "On the other hand, I may need a clerk. It's way after hours, and the others have gone."

Beneath a gesture of wry protest, she swallowed rapidly.

"Perhaps you'd better come," insisted Perat.

She stood up, unloosed her waist-purse, checked its contents swiftly, and then followed him out.

This might be a very close thing. From the purse she took a bottle of perfume and rubbed her ear lobes casually.

"Odd smell," commented Perat, wrinkling his nose.

"Odd scent," corrected Evelyn cryptically. She was thinking about the earnest faces of the mentors as they instructed her carefully in the use of the "perfume." The adrenalin glands, they had explained, provided a useful and powerful stimulant to a man in danger. Adrenalin slowed the heart and digestion, increased the systole and blood pressure, and increased perspiration to cool the skin. But there could be too much of a good thing. An overdose of adrenalin, they had pointed out, caused almost immediate edema. The lungs filled rapidly with the serum and the victim ... drowned. The perfume she possessed over-stimulated, in some unknown way, the adrenals of frightened persons. It had no effect on inactive adrenals.

The question remained--who would be the more frightened, she or the condemned inquisitor?

She was perspiring freely, and the blonde hair on her arms and neck was standing stiffly when Perat opened the door for her and they entered the Zone Provost's chambers.

* * * * *

One glance at the trembling creature in the prisoner's chair reassured her. The ex-inquisitor, shorn of his insignia, shabby and stubble-bearded, sat huddled in his chair and from time to time swept his grave tormentors with glazed eyes. He looked a long while at Evelyn.

She got out her bottle of perfume idly and held it open in her warm hand. The officers and judge-provost were listening to the opening address of the prosecution and took no notice of her.

More and more frequently the condemned man turned his gaze to Evelyn. She poured a little of the scent on her handkerchief. The prisoner coughed and rubbed his chin, trying to think.

The charges were finally read, and the defense attorney began his opening statement. The prisoner, now coughing more frequently, was oblivious to all but the woman. Once she thought she saw a flicker of recognition in his eyes, and she fanned herself hurriedly with her handkerchief.

The trial droned on to a close. It was a mere formality. The prosecutor summed up by proving that a Terran woman had been captured, possibly named Evelyn Kane, turned over to the defendant for registration and disposal, and that the defendant's weekly accounts failed to show a receipt for the release of the woman. Q.E.D., the death sentence must be affirmed.

The light in the prisoner's eyes was growing clearer, despite his bronchial difficulties. He began now to pay attention to what was said and to take notice of the other faces. It was as though he had finally found the weapon he wanted, and patiently awaited an opportunity to use it.

The defense was closing. Counsel for the prisoner declared that the latter might have been the innocent victim of the escapee, Evelyn Kane, possibly a telepathic Terran woman, because only a fool would have permitted a prisoner to escape without attempting to juggle the prison records, unless his mind had been under telepathic control. They ought to be looking for Evelyn Kane now, instead of wasting time with her victim. She might be anywhere. She might even be in this building. He bowed apologetically to Evelyn, she smiled at the faces suddenly looking at her with new interest.

The man in the prisoner's chair was peering at Evelyn through half-closed eyes, his arms crossed on his chest. He had stopped coughing, and the fingers of his right hand were tapping patiently on his sleeve.

If Perat should at this moment probe the prisoner's mind....

Evelyn, in turning to smile at Perat, knocked the bottle from the table to the floor, where it broke in a liquid tinkle. She put her hands to her mouth in contrite apology. The judge-provost frowned, and Perat eyed her curiously. The prisoner was seized with such a spasm of coughing that the provost, who had stood to pronounce sentence, paused in annoyance. The wracking ceased.

The provost picked up the Faeg lying before him.

"Have you anything to say before you die?" he asked coldly.

The ex-inquisitor stood and turned a triumphant face to him. "Excellency, you ask, where is the woman prisoner who escaped from me? Well, I can tell you...."

He clutched wildly at his throat, coughed horridly, and bent in Evelyn Kane's direction.

"_She_...."

His lips, which were rapidly growing purple, moved without saying anything intelligible, and he suddenly crashed over the chair and to the floor.

The prison physician leaped to him, stethoscope out. After a few minutes, he stood up, puzzled and frowning, in the midst of a strained silence. "Odd, very odd," he muttered.

"Did the prisoner faint?" asked the judge-provost incuriously, lowering the Faeg.

"The prisoner's lungs are filled with liquid, apparently the result of hyperactive adrenals," commented the baffled physician. "He's dead, and don't ask me to explain why."

Evelyn smothered a series of hacking coughs in her handkerchief as the court broke up in excited groups. From the corner of her eye she saw that Perat was studying her thoughtfully.