"Look, I can explain everything. My Embassy staff insisted on hurrying me off—"
Somebody gave a high-pitched whoop directly behind me and emptied the clip of a pistol. I couldn't even hear what else I said. I couldn't hear what she said, either, but it was something angry.
"You have to listen to me!" I roared in her ear. "I can explain everything!"
"Any diplomat can explain anything!" she shouted back.
"Look, Gail, you're hanging an innocent man!" I yelled back at her. "I'm entitled to a fair trial!"
Somebody on the platform began firing his pistol within inches of the loud-speakers and it sounded like an H-bomb going off. She grabbed my wrist and dragged me toward a door under the platform.
"Down here!" she yelled. "And this better be good, Mr. Silk!"
We went down a spiral ramp, lighted by widely-scattered overhead lights.
"Space-attack shelter," she explained. "And look: what goes on in space-ships is one thing, but it's as much as a girl's reputation is worth to come down here during a barbecue."
There seemed to be quite few girls at that barbecue who didn't care what happened to their reputations. We discovered that after looking into a couple of passageways that branched off the entrance.