Page 9 (1/2)

"So you think the two cases ht be connected Well, as I say, I&039;ll do what I can"

Spar went back to the Bat Rack It was very strange to see Keeper&039;s face in detail It looked old and its pink target center was a big red nose criss-crossed by veins His brown eyes were not so s around Spar&039;s eyes Spar decided it wouldn&039;t be wise to tell Keeper about seeing sharply

"They&039;re a new kind of costume jewelry, Keeper Blasted Earth, I don&039;t have any hair on e, Spar! It&039;s like a drunk to spend precious scrip on such a grotesque bauble"

Spar neither reminded Keeper that all the scrip he&039;d earned at the Bat Rack a as his thu Nor did he tell him about his teeth, but kept theht Keeper shrugged "Gone off soht Spar, this one&039;s stayed put too long

He kept being amazed that he could see all of the Bat Rack sharply It was an octahedron criss-crossed by shrouds and ether square base to square base The apexes of the pyramids were the violet fore and dark red aft corners The four other corners were the starboard green, the black below, the larboard scarlet, and the blue aloft, if you named them from aft in the way the hands of a watch move

Suzy drifted in early Playday Spar was shocked by her blowzy appearance and bloodshot eyes But he was touched by her signs of affection and he felt the strong friendship between the he switched her nearly empty pouch of dark for a full one She told him that, yes, she&039;d once knoeetheart and that, yes, she&039;d heard people say Mabel had seen Sweetheart snatched by vamps

Business was slow for Playday There were no strange brewos Hoping against fearful, gut-level certainty, Spar kept waiting for Doc to coadgets he&039;d given Spar and spout about the Old Days and his strange philosophy

Playday night Crown cairls, all except Almodie Doucette said she&039;d had a headache and stayed at the Hole Once again, all of theh

Spar covertly studied their faces Though nervous and alive, they all had so in their stares akin to those he&039;d seen in e Doc had said they were all zo to find out that Phanette&039;s and Doucette&039;s red-mottled appearance was due to freckles, tiny reddish star-clusters on their white skins

"Where&039;s that faed Keeper said, "Strayed For which I&039;hts like last night"

Keeping his yellon irised eyes on Spar, Crown said, "We believe it was that fight last Playday gave Alht We&039;ll tell her you got rid of the witch cat"

"I&039;d have got rid of the beast if Spar hadn&039;t," Keeper put in "So you think it was a witch cat, coroner?"

"We&039;re certain What&039;s that stuff on Spar&039;s face?"

"A new sort of cheap eye-jewelry, coroner, such as attracts drunks"

Spar got the feeling that this conversation had been prearranged, that there was a new agreeain Suzy was looking angry, but she said nothing

Yet she stayed behind again after the Bat Rack closed Keeper put no clai with a yawn and a stretch through the scarlet hatch Spar checked that all six hatches were locked and shut off the lights, though thatto Suzy, who had gone to his sleeping shroud

Suzy asked, "You didn&039;t get rid of Kim?"

Spar answered, "No, he just strayed, as Keeper said at first I don&039;t knohere Kim is"

Suzy ss are beautiful," she said

Spar said, "Suzy, did you know that Windrush isn&039;t the Universe? That&039;s it&039;s a ship going through space around a white round er than all Windrush?"

Suzy replied, "I know Windrush is sometimes called the Ship I&039;ve seen that round - in pictures Forget all wild thoughts, Spar, and lose yourself in ot to clip his ankle to the shroud Suzy&039;s body didn&039;t attract hi of Al around his eyes and tried to do the same He was troubled by withdrawal symptoms only a little less bad than last Sleepday&039;s Because of that little, he didn&039;t go to the torus for a pouch of moonmist But then there was a sharp jab in his back, as if a ot ony beca, to discover that he was not only clipped, but lashed to his shroud, his wrists stretched in one direction, his ankles in the other, his hands and his feet both nuht made his eyelids red He opened them a little at a tiainst the next shroud He could see Hellhound&039;s great stabbing teeth very clearly If he had opened his eyes a little more swiftly, Hellhound would have dived at his throat

He rubbed his sharp ums to meet an attack on his face

Beyond Hellhound he saw black and transparent spirals He realized he was in Crown&039;s Hole Evidently the last jab in his back had been the injection of a drug

But Crown had not taken away his eye jewelry, nor noted his teeth He had thought of Spar as old Eyeless Toothless

Between Hellhound and the spirals, he saw Doc lashed to a shroud and his big black bag clipped next to hied Evidently he had tried to cry out Spar decided not to Doc&039;s gray eyes were open and Spar thought Doc was looking at hiers on top of the knot lashing his wrists to the shroud and slowly contracted all his muscles and pulled The knot slid down the shroud a h, Hellhound could not see it He repeated this action at intervals

Evenmore than that the hatch to the corridor was zipped shut, and that beyond the dog and Doc, between the black spirals, was an empty and unfurnished cabin whose whole starboard side was stars The hatch to that cabin was open, with its black-striped e beside it

With equal slowness he swung his face to the right, past Doc and past Hellhound, as eagerly watching hi He had pulled down the knot on his wrists two centi In it were e round At last he could see the latter e underneath and irregularly placed The whole was about as big as Spar&039;s palm could have covered, if he had been able to stretch out his arht flash in one of the orange areas The flash was short, then it turned to a tiny black round pushing out through the smoke More than ever, Spar felt sadness

Below the transparency, Spar saw a horrible tableau Suzy was strapped to a bright uyed by shrouds She was very pale and her eyes were closed Fro-tube which forked into five branches Four of the branches went into the red mouths of Crown, Rixende, Phanette, and Doucette The fifth was shut by a s, hands over her eyes

Crown said softly, "We want it all Strip her, Rixie"

Rixende clipped shut the end of her tube and swam to Suzy Spar expected her to rean toalways fro blood nearer her neck