"I should brand it on your mouth, Earthman. But the map, please?"
She wasn't beautiful, thought Flip; her eyes were too far apart, her lips too large—sensual. And her green eyes, her eyebrows long and slanting, her firm lithe sleekness—they were more feline than feminine. Which was dangerously feminine, thought Flip, and perhaps she was beautiful.
"Captain Vixen, the Legend does you an injustice," he observed. "The complexion! Like swamp lilies in the mist...." Then he laughed, for lovely women weren't danger to Flip Miller. Quite on the contrary. "Now what's all this about a map? My xanite mine?"
"Fool, did you think your arrival on Venus was not made known to me—and your purpose here?"
"You followed me to get that map!" Flip threw back his head with mirth. Charlie made shushing noises. But it was too funny, Flip thought. Didn't she know the mine was worthless? She must! But she had come out here after him in person. Perhaps she didn't know the bottom had fallen out of the xanite market.
The woman motioned to the man with the scar. "Search him," she said, smoke curling from her lips. The fellow came forward, reached out a hairy hand. Flip slapped it aside, annoyed.
"Oh, drop the mask, Viki, and let's be friends," he said. "And I don't like the company you keep."
"Oh, Lord!" groaned Charlie. The man looked at the woman, waited for orders.
"I said search him," she repeated.
The man holstered his gun, snatched at Flip's collar. The shirt ripped and Flip's fist came up as he rose. Spat! The man staggered backward, hit the wall and slid to the floor. In the same second Flip hurled his chair at the man in the doorway. The woman was between him and the other fellow's gun, which probably saved him. He saw Charlie get to his feet as he whirled upon the woman—to find her pistol only inches from his belly.