"Now what?" the girl asked.
The Falcon killed the rockets, turned about on the seat, conscious for the first time that he still held his dis-gun against her side with his left hand.
He thought fast then, made plans and discarded them with a speed that raced them kaleidoscopically through his mind. He could leave the girl tied in the cruiser—but she had seen him, could identify him to the IP men. Or he could—he shrank from the thought; he was brutal in a dispassionate way, but he was no murderer.
"Get out," he snapped.
Color surged into the girl's face, then faded, leaving the skin a sickly white. She shrank from him, pressing against the far wall.
"I read it in your eyes," she whispered. "You were thinking of killing me!"
The Falcon flushed angrily, more at himself than at the girl, hating himself for thinking such thoughts, hating the twisted years that had warped him to the point that he acted like the scum he had weeded from among his men.
"Get out," he said again, and his voice was softer. "I mean you no harm." He flicked a glance from the port, toward the sky where the violet beams of mass-detectors probed the sky and earth.
She slid from the seat, took the two steps to the port, opened it with a surge of lithe strength. She dropped to the ground, followed by the Falcon. There was a puzzled fear in her eyes, a fear that grew by the moment as she saw the sleek Kent-Horter quiescent on the sand.
The Falcon stepped lithely about his prisoner, whistled with a queerly distorted note, and the port came automatically open. He gestured with the gun, impatience flaming in his eyes as she hesitated.