"I bought my freedom with the money you left for me," she explained slowly. "There was enough left to bribe the guards of the supply ship."
Caught between confusion and anger, Wilding stormed at her.
"You must have lost your mind. What could you want—"
The girl stopped him with a gesture. "Perhaps. And perhaps more than my mind. I convinced them that all I wanted was to see the place you had been taken. I did not try to convince myself. All the time I hoped something would happen. Some miracle. I ask nothing from you. Just let me stay near you—"
Tichron's laugh was a knife-thrust in the heavy stillness of the ship.
"Friend," he said enviously. "You have one woman too many."
"One is sometimes too many," Wilding said irritably. He told Elshar, "I'll decide later what to do with you. Now I'm too busy."
The girl studied him gravely. "Don't think about me. I'll be no trouble to you."
Wilding nodded and turned his attention to Concor, who already bent over the calculators.