"Do you usually ignore your visitors?"
Freedman straightened, his face red, to stare with surprise at the slim, honey-haired girl inside the door. She wore the uniform of the Space Merchants of Vestena. Her neat figure seemed molded into the scanty leather breeches and gold-cloth vest. A small light-gun hung loosely from the belt around her waist. Was it his imagination, or did the fingers of her right hand poise lightly over the gun?
"Hello," he said slowly. "I don't think I know you. I had expected...."
She nodded.
"The porter," she said. "Yes, I had to bribe him to let me come up."
Blair Freedman felt new warmth in his face. Anger, rising slowly, made his fingers clench.
"Why was it so necessary to see me?"
He didn't like it. The Space Merchants were neutral, but the satellite Vestena was stalling waiting to declare war. Could she be a spy?
The girl walked across the room and looked down on the busy square below. Her back was turned to him. She had a way of coolly going about her business as though he didn't exist, and speaking to him only when she was ready to do so. He watched the slim, well-built figure, the maze of fluffy gold that hung about the back of her neck.
"You're Blair Freedman," she said, without turning around.