Read 05-A Gift From Earth for Free Online Page B

Matt realized that the hand belonged to Laney Mattson. "Hi," he said.
    "Hi. Want a stand-in?"
    "Guess so."
    Somebody changed places with him — one of Laney's tall escorts — and Laney led him through the thinning ranks to a miraculously unoccupied sofa. Matt sank deep into it. The room would start to whirl if he closed his eyes.
    "Do you always get this looped?"
    "No. Something bugging me."
    "Tell me?"
    He turned to look at her. Somehow his vodka-blurred eyes saw past Laney's makeup, saw that her mouth was too wide and her green eyes were strangely large. But she wore a smile of sympathetic curiosity.
    "Ever see a twenty-one-year-old virgin male?" He squinted to, try to read her reaction.
    The corners of Laney's mouth twisted. strangely. "No." She was trying riot to laugh, be realized. He turned away.
    She asked, "Lack of interest?"
    "No! Hell, no."
    "Then what?"
    "She forgets me." Matt felt himself sobering with time and the effort of answering. "All of a sudden the girl I'm chasing just" — he gestured a little wildly — "forgets I'm around. I don't know why."
    "Stand up."
    Humph?"
    He felt her hand on his arm, pulling. He stood up. The room spun and he realized that he wasn't sobering; he'd just felt steadier sitting down. He followed the pull of her arm, relieved that he didn't fall down. The next thing he knew, everything was pitch black.
    "Where are we?"
    No answer. He felt hands pull his shirt apart, hands with small sharp nails which caught in his chest hair. Then his pants dropped. "So this is it," he said, in a tone of vast surprise. It sounded so damn silly that he wanted to cringe.
    "Don't panic," said Laney. "Mist Demons, you're nervous! Come here. Don't trip over anything."
    He managed to walk out of his pants without falling. His knees bumped something. "Fall face down," Laney commanded, and he did. He was face down on an airfoam mattress, rigidly tense. Hands that were stronger than they ought to be dug into the muscles of his neck and shoulders, kneading them like dough. It felt wonderful. He lay there with his arms out like a swandiver, going utterly limp as knuckles ran down the sides of his vertebrae, as slender fingers pulled each separate tendon into a new shape.
    When he was good and ready, he turned over and reached out.

    To his left was a stack of photos a foot high. Before him three photos, obviously candid shots. Jesus Pietro spread them out and looked them over. He wrote a name under one of them. The others rang no bell, so he shuffled them and put them on the big stack. Then he stood up and stretched
    "Match these with the suspects we've already collected," he told an aide. The man saluted, picked up the stack and left the flying office, moving toward the patrol wagons. Jesus Pietro followed him out.
    Almost half of Harry Kane's guests were now in patrol wagons. The photographs had been taken as they entered the front door earlier tonight. Jesus Pietro, with his phenomenal memory, had identified a good number of them.
    The night was cool and dark. A stiff breeze blew across the Plateau, carrying a smell of rain.
    Rain.
    Jesus Pietro looked up to see that half the sky was raggedly blotted out. He could imagine trying to conduct a raid in a pouring rainstorm. He didn't like the idea.
    Back in his office, he turned the intercom to all-channel. "Now hear this," he said conversationally. "Phase two is on. Now."

    "Is everyone that nervous?"
    Laney chuckled softly. Now she could laugh all she wanted, if she wanted. "Not that nervous. I think everyone must be a little afraid the first time."
    "You?"
    "Sure. But Ben handled it right. Good man, Ben."
    "Where is he now?" Matt felt a mild gratitude toward Ben.
    "He's — he's gone." Her tone told him to drop it. Matt, guessed he'd been caught wearing a hearing aid or something.
    "Mind if I turn on a light?"
    "If you can find a switch," said Laney, "you can turn it on."
    She didn't expect him to, not in pitch blackness in a strange room, but he did. He