"Thought so. Come on; you're going to sleep now."
The girl did not move. "With whom?" she asked, quietly. Her voice did not quiver, but stark terror lay in her mind and her hand crept unconsciously toward the hilt of her dagger.
"Holy Klono's claws!" Kinnison snorted, staring at her in wide-eyed wonder. "Just what kind of a bunch of hyenas do you think you've got into, anyway?"
"Bad," the girl replied, gravely. "Not the worst possible, but from my standpoint plenty bad enough. What can I expect from the Patrol except what I do expect? You don't need to kid me along, Kinnison. I can take it, and I'd a lot rather take it standing up, facing it, than have you sneak up on me with it after giving me your shots in the arm."
"What somebody has done to you is a sin and a shrieking shame," Kinnison declared, feelingly. "Come on, you poor little devil." He picked up sundry pieces of apparatus, then, taking her arm, he escorted her to another cabin.
"That door," he explained carefully, "is solid tool steel. The lock is on the inside, and it cannot be picked. There are only two keys to it in the Universe, and here they are. There is a bolt, too, that cannot be forced by anything short of a hydraulic jack. Here is a full-coverage screen, and here's a twenty-foot spy-ray block. There is your stuff out of the speedster. If you want help, or anything to eat or drink, or anything else that can be expected aboard a star wagon, there's the communicator. QX?"
"Then you really mean it? That I ... that you ... I mean—"
"Absolutely," he assured her. "Just that. You are completely the master of your destiny, the captain of your soul. Good night."
"Good night, Kinnison. Good night, and th ... thanks." The girl threw herself face downward upon the bed in a storm of sobs.
Nevertheless, as Kinnison started back toward his own cabin, he heard the massive bolt click into its socket and felt the blocking screens go on.