Spacepaw by Gordon R. Dickson

over the rim of his drinking vessel, had identified the figure as human—and female, at that.
    Hastily, he replaced the drinking container on the table, turning to Bone Breaker.
    “Wasn’t that—” he had to think a moment to remember the Dilbian name for her, “Dirty Teeth, I just saw going out the door?”
    The huge Dilbian outlaw chief stared back down at Bill with dark, unreadable eyes.
    “Why, I don’t know, Pick-and-Shovel,” answered Bone Breaker. “Did you say you saw her?”
    “That’s right,” replied Bill, a little grimly, “she just went out the doors there. You didn’t see her? You’re facing that way.”
    “Why,” said Bone Breaker mildly, “I don’t remember seeing her. But as I said, she’s around here some place. It could have been her. Why don’t you take a look for yourself, if you want?”
    “I think I’ll do just that,” replied Bill. He swung around on the stool and dropped to the floor. To his discomfort and dismay, he discovered that the dangling of his legs in midair over the sharp edge of the stool had put the right leg to sleep. A sensation of pins and needles was shooting through it now, and it felt numb and unreliable. Trying not to hobble, he turned and headed toward the big, open, double door.
    Finally he reached the wide-open doors and stepped thankfully into the twilight outside. Looking first right and then left he saw that even the guards who had been lounging there were gone now. For a moment, as his gaze swept the gloaming that was settling down over the barricaded valley, a feeling of annoyance began to kindle in him. He could not discover anywhere that slim, girlish figure he had seen passing within the hall. Then abruptly his eyes located her— hardly more than a dark shadow against the darkening loom of the wall of an outbuilding some fifty feet away.
    He went down the steps at a bound and headed toward her at a run, just as she turned the corner of the outbuilding and disappeared.
    The soft turf all but absorbed the sound of his thudding boots as he ran. He reached the corner of the building and came swiftly around it. Suddenly, he was almost on top of her, for she had been merely idling on her way, it appeared, her head down as if she was deep in thought.
    What do you say in a situation like this, wondered Bill, ashe hastily put on the brakes; and she, still deep in thought, continued to wander on, evidently without having heard him. He searched his mind for her real name, but all that would come up from his memory in this winded moment was the nickname of Dirty Teeth that the Dilbians had given her. Finally, in desperation, he compromised.
    “Hey!” he said, moving up behind her.
    She jumped, and turned. From a distance of only a few feet away, in the growing dimness of the twilight, he was able to make out that her face was oval and fine-boned, her hair was brown and smooth, fitting her head almost like a helmet, and her eyes were startling green and wide. They widened still further at the sight of him.
    “Oh, here you are!” she cried in English. “For heaven’s sake, what do you mean by coming here, of all places? Didn’t you know any better’than to charge into a delicate situation like this, the moment you landed, like a bull into a china shop?”

Chapter 6
    Bill stared at Anita Lyme, wordlessly.
    He was not wordless because she had left him with nothing to say. He was wordless because he had too many things to say at once, and they were all fighting each other in his mind for first use of his tongue. If he had been the stuttering kind, he would have stuttered—with incredulity and plain, downright fury.
    “Now, wait!” he managed to say at last, “you got yourself into this place, here—”
    “—And I knew what I was doing! You don’t!” she snapped back, neatly stealing the conversational ball from his grip. “You’re just lucky I was here to get you out of it. If I hadn’t heard from the outlaw females about Sweet Thing’s