The elderly man went white. Two of the younger men arose, came forward, took Sandra Drake by the arms—one to each—and removed her from the chamber. They were not gentle, and on any inhabited planet employing the use of the Terran vernacular, she had been "Bounced!"
And Sandra knew it.
And then there came a bit of understanding. It hit hard. And in the brief minutes that Sandra looked facts in the face before she took to demanding impossible things once more, she realized that she had backed into her own trap. She had been demanding. She had chosen to teach those who met her the Terran language instead of learning Telfan. Now those who understood any bit of Terran had gone to meet the Haywire Queen, leaving her among those who could not understand her at all. She could not communicate her desires to any of them.
She could not even tell them of the desire that they wanted to hear: That she wanted to leave.
The whole city would have broken a blood vessel to get her out.
But they didn't talk the same language.
The Haywire Queen came down in a screaming, wild landing. She rifled down out of the sky, careening. She slanted for a half mile, and then squared away and came plummeting down vertically. Inside, the accelerometer was making wild gyrations as Timkins fought the controls.
