Charles reached the bed in two strides and clamped his hand over Lee Falcaro-Bennet's mouth. Only a feeble "mmm!" came out, but the girl thrashed violently in his grip.
"Shut up, lady!" Martha whispered. "Nobody's going to rape you."
There was an astonished "mmm?" and she subsided, trembling.
"Go ahead," Martha told him. "She won't yell."
He took his hand away nervously. "We've come to administer the oath of citizenship," he said.
The girl answered in the querulous voice that was hardly hers: "You picked a strange time for it. Who are you? What's all the whispering for?"
He improvised. "I'm Commander Lister. Just in from Iceland aboard atom sub Taft. They didn't tell you in case it got turned down, but I was sent for authorization to give you citizenship. You know how unusual it is for a woman."
"Who's this child? And why did you get me up in the dead of night?"
He dipped deeply into Martha's probings of the past week. "Citizenship'll make the Guard Intelligence gang think twice before they try to grab you again. Naturally they'd try to block us if we administered the oath in public. Ready?"
"Dramatic," she sneered. "Oh, I suppose so. Get it over with."