"Atomic disintegrators are seen only in museums today," she whispered. "And you of Earth do not even have them. Lallista! You are a dead man walking around."
"Hey," chuckled Jonathan, grabbing her arms and pulling her around to face him. "Chin up. I may not know much about weapons, but I'll bet I've still got a trick or two up my sleeve. I'll show that windbag where he gets off. You wait. You'll see."
Her eyes begged his for reassurance. She lay close against him and her mouth quivered into a smile.
"You were—joking me, then? You do know of weapons that you haven't mentioned?"
"Sure," he boasted gaily. "Lots of them. Brass knuckles. Galloping dominoes. A ginrickey. A mickey finn. The Brooklyn Dodgers."
"I am so glad," she whispered. "That makes me feel so much better."
She did not see his frown as she walked with him across the white composition walk toward their guest quarters. He wasn't thinking of himself. He was wondering what Morka Kar would do to her—after he got through with him.
"Just the same," the girl was saying, "I think that I will show you some of the weapons Morka Kar may use. Those, at least, that I know. We will go and sit together beneath the moons, and I will teach them to you, one after the other."
Jonathan looked at her red mouth and grinned, "I'll show you a weapon, too. On Earth we call it a—kiss."
The night was warm and the moons that hurtled across the Neeoornian sky shed a pale lustre on the gardens where Adatha Za and Jonathan Morgan sat. Between her legs lay a box filled with strips of queerly colored metals, vials of shining dull and iridescent chemicals, containers and compartments of tubes and alloys.