Part 2 (1/2)
Garr Symm ignored him. The blue-skinned girl cried.
Ramsey grimaced and hit Garr Symm in the belly as hard as he could.
Symm thudded back against the table. It overturned with a crash and the Security Chief crashed down on top of it. There wasn't a sound in the gambling hall except Ramsey's sudden hard breathing, the Vegan girl's sniffling, and Garr Symm's noisy attempts to get air into his lungs.
Then Garr Symm gagged and was sick. He writhed in pain, still unable to breathe. His hands fluttered near his weapons belt.
”Come on,” Ramsey told the Vegan girl. ”We'd better get out of here.” He took her arm. Dumbly she went with him. None of the outworlders there tried to stop them. Ramsey looked back at Garr Symm. The Irwadian was shaking his fist. He had finally managed to draw his m.g. gun, but the crowd of outworlders closed between them and there was no chance he could hit Ramsey or the girl. Retching, he had dirtied the glossy green scales of his chest.
”I'll get you,” he vowed. ”I'll get you.”
Ramsey took the girl outside. It was very cold. ”I'm so afraid,” she said. ”What will I do? What can I do?” She shook with fear.
”You got a place to sleep?”
”Y-yes, but I'm the only Vegan girl in Irwadi City. He'll find me. He'll find me when he's ready.”
”O.K. Then come home with me.”
”I--”
”For crying out loud, I don't look that lecherous, do I? We can't just stand here.”
”I--I'm sorry. I'll go with you of course.”
Ramsey took her hand again and they ran. The cold black Irwadian night swallowed them.
”So you live in the Old Quarter too,” the Vegan girl said.
”Heck yeah. Did you expect a palace?”
Ramsey had a room, rent one Irwadi month in arrears, in a cold-water tenement near the river which demarked the Old and the New Quarters. The facade of the old building was dark now. His landlady was probably asleep, although you never could tell with that old witch. Ramsey knew it wouldn't be the first time she stayed up through half the night to await a delinquent tenant.
”I--I never went to a man's room before,” the blue-skinned Vegan girl said. She was rather pretty in a slender, muscleless, big-eyed, female-helpless mode.
”You're a dance-hall girl, aren't you?”
”Still, I never spent the night in a man's--”
”What's the matter with you? You think we're going to spend the night here? Somebody over at those gaming tables will be able to identify me.
Garr Symm'll be on his way before long.”
”Then what are we going to do?” The girl was s.h.i.+vering with cold.
”Hide,” Jason Ramsey said. ”Somewhere. I just came back to get my things. There isn't much, but there's an old m.g. gun which we might need.”
”But they'll find us, and--”