"Gregg, if they are listening—"
I pushed her away. This brave little masquerader! Not for my life, or for all the lives on the ship, would I consciously have endangered her.
"But Grantline's findings!" I said aloud. "In his message—see here, Prince—"
Coniston was too far away on the deck to hear us. Anita went to my door again and waved at him reassuringly. I put my ear to the door opening and listened at the space across the grid of the ventilator over my bunk. The hum of a vibration would have been audible at those two points. But there was nothing.
"It's all right," I whispered, and she clung to me—so small beside me. With the black robe thrown aside, it seemed that I could not miss the curves of her woman's figure. A dangerous game she was playing. Her hair had been cut short to the base of her neck, in the fashion of her dead brother. Her eyelashes had been clipped: the line of her brows altered. And now, in the light of my tube as it shone upon her earnest face, I could remark other changes. Glutz, the little beauty specialist, was in this secret. With plastic skill he had altered the set of her jaw—put masculinity here.
She was whispering: "It was—was poor George whom Miko shot."
I had now the true version of what had occurred. Miko had been forcing his wooing upon Anita. George Prince was a weakling whose only good quality was his love for his sister. Some years ago he had fallen into evil ways. Been arrested, and then been discharged from his position with the Federated Corporation. He had taken up with evil companions in Greater New York. Mostly Martians. And Miko had met him. His technical knowledge, his training with the Federated Corporation, made him valuable to Miko's enterprise. And so Prince had joined the brigands.
Of all this, Anita had been unaware. She had never liked Miko. Feared him. But it seemed that the Martian had some hold upon her brother, which puzzled and frightened Anita.
Then Miko had fallen in love with her. George had not liked it. And that night on the Planetara, Miko had come and knocked upon Anita's door, and incautiously she had opened it. He forced himself in. And when she repulsed him, struggled with him, George had been awakened.
She was whispering to me now. "My room was dark. We were all three struggling. George was holding me—the shot came—and I screamed."