"I have so!" she flared. "What do you suppose I'm carrying this knife for?"
"Oh, that." He mentally shrugged the wicked little dagger aside as he pondered. "You little lamb in wolf's clothing—but at that, your memories may, I think, be altogether too valuable to monkey with. There's something funny about this whole matrix—damned funny. Come clean, angel face—why?"
"They told me," Illona admitted, wriggling slightly, "to act tough—really tough. As though I were an adventuress who had been everywhere and had done ... done everything. That the worse I acted the better I would get along in your Civilization."
"I suspected something of the sort. And what did you zwil ... excuse me, you folks ... go to Lyrane for, in the first place?"
"I don't know. From chance remarks I gathered that we were to land upon one of the planets—any one, I supposed—and wait for somebody."
"What were you, personally, going to do?"
"I don't know that, either—not exactly, that is. Whoever it was that we were going to meet was going to give us instructions."
"How come those women killed your men? Didn't they have thought-screens, too?"
"No. They were not agents, just soldiers. They killed about a dozen of the Lyranians when we first landed—to demonstrate their power—then they dropped dead."