"Do you wonder now that they married me?" she cried triumphantly, pirouetting. "Seven of them, the richest men in all the outer planets! And lovers—how many lovers did I take? Now I'll have more—more husbands, more lovers! Because I'm young again; I'm beautiful...."
Without warning, her voice trailed off. Her lovely face mirrored sudden shock.
Disregarding Cheng's leveled gun, Ross stepped in quickly; caught the woman's arm. "Astrell! What's wrong?"
She didn't answer. As swiftly as they had come, the gayness, the buoyancy, seemed to have gone out of her. Flat-footed, she stumbled towards the table.
Only then her knees hinged. She started to fall.
Ross levered her arm up, bracing her.
His hands seemed to slip, to slide away. The woman sprawled on the floor. Her breath came in hoarse, labored gasps.
Blankly, Ross looked from her to his hands.
Where his fingers had touched Astrell, slime now dripped from them ... the same hideous, stinking ooze that had marked the corpse of Zoltan Prenzz, the death of Sanford Hall....
Ross' eyes lifted to stare momentarily at Cheng and Veta in numb, dumb horror, then flicked back to Astrell once more.