The Falcon shook his head. "Sorry, but the stakes are too big for me to risk another's word." He nodded at the empty seat. "Sit down," he finished kindly. "In some ways, I'm not quite as bad as I am painted."
Curt Varga tensed, felt the probing finger of thought digging at his mind. He threw up a mind-shield almost casually, grinned mockingly.
"A telepath?" he said conversationally.
Irritation colored the girl's cheeks; then reluctant admiration came into her eyes. She accepted a pulnik capsule, deftly rolled a cigarette, before answering.
"Not many could dismiss me that easily," she asserted. "I had five years at NYU, on Earth." She accepted a light for the cigarette.
Curt Varga nodded. "Old habit," he disclaimed. "I used to play space-rocketry with the thought-men of Pluto; the guy with an unshielded mind never had a chance."
Jean Harlon's gaze was speculative. "What happened?" she said. "Or am I stepping on your toes?"
The Falcon's face was twisted then with a show of emotion that brought a glance of disbelief from the girl. And then resolve flared in the set of his shoulders, and his voice was steady.
"I was making agent-contacts. One of my men must have tipped the IP, for they came into my 'headquarters' and made a quiet search. I would have got away, but for the fact they used that diabolic paralysis beam on a friend of mine. He pointed me out." Curt shrugged. "I had to fight my way from the trap. My brother was killed. I escaped through the conduit system, came out on the spaceport. You know the rest."