Startlingly, a match flamed in the blackness, became an orange glow that rose to the cigarette between Randy's lips. He was over near a wall, his gun in his other hand. He puffed hard and his face glowed masklike, his eyes seeking Hale.
Hale, blinking, saw that Randy hadn't changed much. He was still dark and slender, his brown eyes large and bright. But now his hair came down fully to the fur collar of his jacket, in the manner of the canal crowd. The movement that brought him to Hale's side was graceful.
"How many are they, Hale? Think I could break for it?"
Hale said, "It'd be quicker than the redboys."
Randy pulled in a hard breath. "My blaster's jammed. They could've nailed me any time they felt like it. It's been hell, waiting for that." He looked at the gun. The hand that held it was trembling.
Hale sighed. "I guess I could walk you out at gunpoint, then, but I don't want to do that. Come out with me on your own hook, Randy. You've played your four queens till now, but you drew a bad hand tonight."
Randy drew unsteadily on his cigarette. Hale, looking beyond, saw the dark mass near one wall that must be the guardian. The stain on the fur robe was black. The blind sockets in the skull of the Lhrai, who sprawled batlike against the chanting wall, were black too.
"I didn't want to shoot the redboy." Randy slowly holstered the gun. "I slugged him, but he had a hard head. He came at me with a knife while I was prying the twin-stones out of the idol. Why couldn't he lay quiet? I never wanted to kill anybody." His eyes found Hale's in the gloom, and the brightness in them tonight was mostly fear. "You always said I ought to get off Mars. Last week, I decided to. But I didn't have any money, so I went to Ricco. He wouldn't trust me off-world with his money, but he said he had a tourist interested in a good set of twin-stones. He said there was five thousand in it for me. He said there was a good pair here, and—"
He stopped short, his young face hardening with shocking suddenness. "By the red gods, Ricco!" he ground out. "Of course—he tipped them off I'd be here. So he'd have me killed over a girl, damn his black soul." He spun away from Hale in a violent motion, his thin mouth feral with rage. Hale waited in the blackness and slowly Randy turned back. Carefully he flattened the cigarette his clenching fist had bruised. "Why didn't I think?" he almost whispered. "They told me he was after my skin—"