Sean jerked his red-thatched head around, stared at him.
"Why the sudden earnestness?" Mike licked his lips quickly. "I didn't know it before, but just now when I was looking over the people here, I found Marcia, and she's sick."
"Marcia?" Sean repeated. "I thought you and she had busted up that romance?"
Mike nodded: "She did," he said quietly. "But I'll never stop loving her."
"Mike, how about Jane? You and she were to be married—tomorrow, wasn't it?"
"I know, I know," Mike said hurriedly. "But Marcia's sick, and she looked at me so appealingly when I recognized her, it all came back. The least I can do is comfort her."
"Sure, sure ..." Sean said. That curious scraping sound that marked the coming of a Krak interrupted them.
It was the scarlet-kilted Krak who had marked Sean for the trip. He stood inside the open prison door, his naked torso gleaming in the yellow light and his hairless round head turning.
His round head stopped turning as his dark eyes above the wide flat nose fastened on Sean's red hair.
"You," he mouthed, "with the red hair. Come!"