And if nothing else, she was good for a hostage. It was still a long way up to Deimos.
"Maybe we can get away," she whispered, her eyes closed. "I mean into space. Maybe you could do some of the things you did in the old days. We could live—for a while. I heard that once you stopped a ship enroute to Venus and lifted twenty billion in credits."
Sure, he remembered. He smiled thinly, but he didn't say anything. He didn't tell her that the days of the Barstacs were gone for good.
Finally he said, "Sure, you can come along. And thanks for the ride."
He took the rocket up himself. They were pursued for a while, but the sports rocket was a lot faster than any cop wagon this side of Earth. Marian didn't seem to care when she saw he was heading for Deimos instead of outer space. He explained about the big nets out there, and of how they'd have to figure out a way to get through. She kept looking at him with a kind of awe, her eyes wide and deeply dark. She talked about herself.
"We'll hole up here for a while," Barstac said. "Maybe we can find a way through the nets. You—you don't have to stay."
"I'll stay with you, Karl, right to the end."
"You say you've been here to Deimos before?"
She nodded, never taking her eyes from his hard, unemotional face. "All my life I guess I've been looking for something. Maybe I thought I'd find it on Deimos. I didn't; I found release there. I can find real life with you, maybe the kind that flames so high for a moment, but is worth a full lifetime of mundanity. I can find life with you, Karl, if you'll pardon my being so forward. Maybe it's death we're looking for, Karl. An escape from a system that's destroyed initiative. A system that's tied up the human heart in a bunch of laws and hooked them together into a big machine."