The eyeless nightmare head wasn't three feet from her own.
The lights in the room went out.
Trigger flung herself backwards, rolled six feet to one side, stood up, backed away and stopped again.
22
The blackness in the room was complete. She spun the Denton to kill. There was silence around her and then a soft rustling at some distance. It might have been the cautious shuffle of a heavy foot over thick carpeting. It stopped again. Where was Lyad?
Her eyes shifted about, trying to pierce the darkness. Black-light, she thought. She said, "Lyad?"
"Yes?" Lyad's voice came easily in the dark. She might be standing about thirty feet away, at the far end of the room.
"Call your animal off," Trigger said quietly. "I don't want to kill it." She began moving in the direction from which Lyad had spoken.
"Pilli won't hurt you, Trigger," the Ermetyne said. "He's been sent in to disarm you, that's all. Throw your gun away and he won't even touch you." She laughed. "Don't bother shooting in my direction either! I'm not in the room any more."
Trigger stopped. Not because of what that hateful, laughing voice had said. But because in the dark about her a fresh, pungent smell was growing. The smell of ripe apples.