Flint's legs stopped in midstride, knees bent one before the other, like a stop-motion movie. He sprawled forward.
Before he could get up, the girl was beside him. She sat down on his back, pinning him to the ground. "Next time you kiss a girl without knowing whether she wants to be kissed or not," she said, "hang onto your gun."
Then the police, with Hudson and Leggett, were crowded around them.
"Are you all right, Miss Vaun?"
Flint lay there feeling very foolish.
But the girl ignored the crowd, still talking to him, "You didn't know I was an ice pistol expert, too, did you? You didn't know I was in the fur business because my father used to be a trapper on Venus. When I was twelve years old, I could bring down a tigodon at a half a mile."
The beefy-faced patrolman, his nose bandaged now, said, "If you'll get up, Miss Vaun, we'll take care of him now."
The others were staring at the space bat, flopping about feebly a short distance away, its awful strength spent.
"Leggett," the fur merchant said to the lawyer, "think what a rug that would make for the firm's front office!"
"Miss Vaun can also come into a nice bit of cash from that circus for it," one of the other patrolmen said. "This is her land—or soon will be—and the bat's on it. Where Flint's going, he won't be able to claim anything."