Leaving the base amid tearful good-byes was preferable to fighting my way out of it, so a low profile was definitely a high priority.
The terminal beeped for attention, giving Valdon something else to stare at, but the distraction didn’t last long. There were only three rows of symbols for him to glance at and respond to, and then his dark black eyes were on me again.
“How do you like our facilities?” he asked, as though just making conversation to while away the time. “The base is pretty standard, but we like to think we have better optionals than any other outpost in the Confederacy.”
“I’m sure you do,” I agreed in a sober way, leaving it to him to decide whether I was agreeing with his opinion or his conclusion. A faint shadow that might have been annoyance flickered in his eyes while he waited for me to add to my four word statement, and when I didn’t he stirred in the squarish chair.
“We don’t often get visitors like you, and I’m curious about you,” he admitted in a friendly, outgoing way. “I’m assuming you’re lost, and were heading somewhere else. Where were you going, and how long did it take you to get here?”
He was playing it casual, asking his too-pointed questions and trying to keep his interested inspection of me from becoming overly obvious.
he seemed to be a man who felt no discomfort from really looking at a woman, but who had learned that many women flinched from that sort of hunter’s interest. I couldn’t remember a time when the thought of being hunted didn’t amuse and interest me more than bother me, but the opportunity was too good to miss.
“I-really don’t remember,” I answered only the last of his questions, swallowing hard as I looked down at my hands in my lap. I had quietly drawn my knees together and was sitting as stiffly and primly as the lump chair allowed. “How much longer do you think Dameron will be?”
“Oh, I’m sure he’ll be back any minute,” Valdon’s voice rushed to reassure me, his tone a shade too jolly. “How about something to drink while we’re waiting?”
“Drink?” I echoed as if I’d never heard the word before, and nearly panicked. I was letting it all fall apart at once, as though my previous coolness had been no more than a front I couldn’t maintain any longer. Valdon was a very handsome man, with the sort of masculine features and mannerisms that too often flustered women right into hysterics. If the way he shrugged meant anything, he’d had to face that particular problem be-fore and shouldn’t be too hard to divert from detectiving.
“Yes, a drink,” he repeated with a pleasant smile. “As a matter of fact, I’ll be glad to join you. What would you like?”
He started to get out of Dameron’s chair, anxious to be doing something other than trying not to stare at me, but he’d asked another question that it wouldn’t be safe to give a non-specific answer to. The man might be temporarily flustered, but he wasn’t likely to be stupid; too many artful evasions would be bound to set him thinking. Instead of registering his question in any way I scrambled out of the lump chair and backed away from him in mute, wide-eyed fear, hoping I wasn’t pushing the act too far. I fully expected to back out the door into the corridor, but found myself startled for real when the door didn’t slide open behind me. I’d been wondering why Dameron had been so casual about leaving me unaccompanied and unwatched, and now I’d accidentally gotten the answer. Being locked in annoyed the hell out of me, but for the sake of the performance I was putting on for Valdon, I couldn’t let it show.
“This is ridiculous,” Valdon muttered, straightening slowly Out of the chair, seeming annoyed. “You’re act as though I’m about to attack you. My self-control is really a lot better than that – I haven’t attacked a woman in months.”
He grinned a very attractive grin to show he was just kidding, but I couldn’t afford to chuckle in answer the way I wanted to. I gave him a sickly smile to show I was trying, and put a shaky hand to my hair.
“I know I’m being silly, but I can’t help it,” I said in a very small voice, sending him a pleading look. “The way you were looking at me, the way you talk – I’m just not used to it. Do you think you can go and see what’s keeping Dameron?”
To say I was trying to get rid of him was an understatement, and I was expecting him to be more than happy to go – but things didn’t work out that way. A deeply frustrated expression flashed briefly across his face, and then he was looking apologetic.
“I already know what’s keeping Dameron, and I’m afraid I have to stay here,” he said, very sincere compassion clear in his tone. “I’ve got to keep an eye on the progress of certain of our projects until he gets back, and I’ve got to do it with this terminal. You don’t mind sharing the room with me for that short a time, do you?”
He brought the grin back and made it really warm, trying to jolly me out of my upset and interest me by turning on the charm. The only problem with that was that in another minute we’d be back to chummy conversation and more questions, the avoidance of which was my original reason for starting that nonsense. I needed him gone or neutralized, and if I couldn’t have one I’d have to settle for the other; it all depended on how gullible he was. I let my eyes begin filming over with tears, and plucked nervously at the one-piece suit t was wearing.
“But I’m afraid of you,” I whispered, making sure my voice came out ragged. “I’ve never been this close to someone like you before, someone who has actually worked among uncivilized barbarians. You keep looking at me the way one of them would – I’m going to cry hard, I just know I am!”
I sniffled a little, finding it damned hard not to burst out laughing at the stricken look that replaced his well-practiced grin. Most men were sensible enough to ignore blackmail tears, but every now and then one would come along who turned to quivering jelly at the first choked sob and/or glisten of moisture. I was almost ashamed to go on taking advantage, but he’d had his chance to bail out and hadn’t taken it. It was too bad, but business was business.
“Now, now, you don’t really want to cry,” he said, looking as though he wanted to come closer and put his manly arms around me – but didn’t dare. “What if I promise not to look at you the way one of them would? That would make you feel better, wouldn’t it?”
“I don’t know,” I snuffled, sounding absolutely forlorn. “Maybe – maybe – if you didn’t look at me at all -”
“That’s a good idea,” he agreed with enthusiasm, turning completely around to look at me over his shoulder. “This is better, isn’t it?”
“You’re still looking at me,” I pointed out with the same quiver in my voice. “And you’re much too close. And you sound so – so – overawing.”
“All right, all right, I’ll take care of it,” he said, that close to growling. I wasn’t sure there was such a word as overawing, but he was still trying to keep me from being overawed. he turned his head completely away from me, stalked up to the wall directly behind Dameron’s block-chair-terminal arrangement, then spoke to the wall.
“This had better do it for you,” he said, making sure not to turn again. “I’ve never been very good at melting into polycrete.”
“Oh, that’s perfect,” I gushed, with a slight grin. “If you can only stay like that until Dameron comes back, I’m sure I won’t cry.”
“You have no idea how much those words mean to me,” he muttered, folding his arms across his chest to signal an end to the conversation that frightened me so much. I laughed without sound as I eased myself over to the second lump chair and then into it, finally stretching out to prop my feet on the block Dameron had done so much with. I would have put Valdon into the room’s corner if I hadn’t thought that would be pushing it, but seeing him standing in front of the wall like a naughty little boy was almost as good. If he hadn’t been considering me a helpless little flutterhead of a female he never would have gone along with my insistances, so he deserved whatever he got for that as well as for being too nosy.
Another twenty minutes or so passed with Valdon shifting at the wall but doing no more than that, a pleasant silence surrounding us that let me go on with developing my campaign against Dameron. I was ready to pull my feet down if the terminal signaled for Valdon’s attention, but the interruption never came and Valdon never turned. I was finding it hard to believe that a grown man could be put to a wall and kept there with such a pack of nonsense, but that’s the way it went until the door to the room slid noiselessly aside and Dameron stepped in. he stopped in the doorway to stare first at Valdon and then at me, and a look of confusion settled on his broad features.
“What are you two doing?” he asked, sounding and looking bewildered.
“We were waiting for you to get back,” I answered, looking up at him without moving even though Valdon turned immediately away from the wall. “You certainly took long enough.”
“There was more involved than I thought there – I still don’t understand.” Dameron’s bewilderment was about to turn into annoyance.
“Why is Valdon standing near the wall all the way over there, while you’re – what the hell is going on?”
“Nothing’s going on,” I assured him, putting my feet down and standing up to face him. Valdon was staring at me without saying a word, but I had more pressing matters to think about. “Why don’t you and I take a little walk and see to that chore we were discussing earlier? It won’t take long, and then you can concentrate on Narella without any distractions. And there are a few other very pertinent advantages I’ll be glad to point out on the way. You might say it’ll be an offer you can’t refuse.”
I gave him an impatient grimace, but before he could answer, another precinct was heard from.
“I could be mistaken, but it sounds as if you’re over your bout of shyness,” Valdon observed, his deep voice having intensified. “Or is it just those of us who have really worked with ‘uncivilized barbarians’ who make you want to cry?”
“I’m very unprejudiced,” I said, looking over my shoulder at Valdon’s annoyance. “If the situation calls for it, I’m willing to shed a few tears for anyone. Are you feeling cheated because I didn’t make good on the threat?”
“She threatened you?” Dameron demanded of Valdon, still trying to figure out what was going on. “What did you do to her?”
“I – ‘overawed’ her,” Valdon answered dryly, as he stared at me. “I made her so nervous by the ferocious way I looked at her and talked to her that she almost had hysterics. I had to promise not to look at her again or say a word, just to keep her from fainting or throwing a crying fit.”
“Hysterics,” Dameron repeated in a flat voice. “Fainting and crying.
Are we talking about the same female?”
I turned my head to Dameron to see that although his unfriendly stare was aimed at me, his faint air of ridicule was directed at Valdon.
The big man’s handsome face had darkened in response to Dameron’s scoffing, but he hadn’t added anything.
“I had to find something amusing to pass the time,” I told Dameron’s accusing stare in a hurt tone designed to let him know how unjust his accusation was. “It wasn’t my idea to be left here unoccupied and ignored while you went trotting off to have fun. And I don’t know what you’re complaining about – no one got hurt, did they?”
I made my question as pointed as possible without being deliberately offensive; Dameron showed he got the point by straightening where he stood and sobering. I hadn’t strung Valdon just for the fun of it, but if Dameron understood that the interlude could have been destructive rather than embarrassing, we didn’t have to go into anything else. I wanted Dameron to see how much better off his base would be with me gone from it, and if his expression was anything to judge by, I wasn’t far from getting what I wanted. Dameron opened his mouth, probably to agree to my suggestion of a walk, but the big hand suddenly wrapping around my right arm stopped any words from being said.
“So making me look like a fool was nothing more than an amusement for you,” Valdon growled, tightening his grip to match the anger in his eyes. “You needed some entertainment to stave off boredom, and I was it. Did you find all the fun you were looking for? You weren’t disappointed?”
“If you don’t like being conned, try being less nosy,” I told him, meeting his anger calmly. “Not everyone considers exchanging life histories the best of conversational topics. And don’t feel too raw over being taken in. You aren’t the first to fall for some line I happened to come up with, and you won’t be the last. The best thing you can do right now is forget it-and let go of my arm.”
“Or you’ll cry?” he asked, still staring down at me. “Maybe a few tears would be the best thing that could happen to you after all – to see to it that I am the last one to fall for some line of yours. You had your fun; it would only be fair if I took my turn.”
“Valdon,” Dameron rumbled warningly from behind my left shoulder, but those deep black eyes gave no indication that the warning had been heard. They were locked to my face, watching for a reaction to the threat he’d made, waiting for the fainthearted regret he expected to set in. It was too bad I wouldn’t be leaving there without trouble after all, but that’s the way things went sometimes.
“You’re entitled to make a stab at taking your turn,” I agreed, then shot my arm forward and sideways fast against his fingers, which broke his hold on my arm. “Only don’t expect me to stand here like a statue while you do. I don’t expect to lose, but if I do the turn is all yours.”
I set myself without being obvious about it, curious as to how good he was. The way he moved said he wasn’t likely to be clumsy or awkward, and his size, handled as easily as he handled it, was a definite asset for him. If he didn’t have a weak middle or a glass jaw I would have my hands full, and shortly thereafter the rest of me would match, with bruises if nothing else. Killing him was out, of course, for many reasons even beyond the one that said he had a right to try getting even. I usually followed the adage that counseled,
“Never make enemies by accident, only on purpose,” but that time I’d missed. If a few bruises were the price for reclaiming the slip, I’d pay the price and count myself lucky, there had been times when it had been higher. I watched the man in front of me carefully, waiting for his first move, but for some reason it didn’t come. He just stood and frowned down at me, finally shaking his head.