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seen wasn’t very encouraging.
    Val was big, broad-shouldered, wide-chested, and narrow in the hip – in other words, a fighting man in his prime – and he leaned against the closed door of my room with his arms folded across his chest. His face, that broad, masculine, ridiculously handsome face, was tight in the jaw, the blaze from his dark black eyes coloring the rest of his expression. He hadn’t yet had enough time to understand that what I was doing was for his good as well as mine, so all he felt was angry. I almost started to tell him not to feel betrayed when he found out about the rest of it, but that would have been stupid. Betrayed was how I wanted him to feel, even if something went really wrong and I had to watch him feeling that emotion.
    “I don’t know anything about your credentials,” I said to Ringer, sticking to my story as I took my attention away from Val. “If you’re so desperate about it, call the Council and have them issue another set.”
    “You’d like that, wouldn’t you?” Ringer growled, slamming the wire recorder-receiver down on the shiny surface of the dresser. “I’d look great when they found out you’d stolen the original set from under my nose after I’d assured them you were safely in the hospital. No, Diana, you’re going to come up with the original set and you’re going to do it fast, or you’ll be sorrier than you’ve ever been in your entire life.”
    Ringer wasn’t even trying to hide his rage, but that was no reason to back down. I took my legs off the chair arm and got slowly to my feet, then cocked my head to one side.
    “Why don’t you try truth drugs?” I suggested in a drawl. “Since you don’t like my answers, you might find ones you like better that way. Or have you got your heart set on hot irons?”
    “The only truth drugs that would work on you are too far away to help me,” Ringer returned, his right fist closed tight and held before him. “Hot irons is closer to what it’ll be if you don’t start talking. I don’t have much time, so I can’t afford to waste any. This is your last chance.”
    I just stood there staring at him so he nodded slightly, understanding I’d said all I was going to, then he moved away from the dresser toward my left.
    “Now, Valdon,” he said softly, and Val left the door and began to move off to the right. With a 9 rating in hand to hand combat I could have held my own with either one of them, but the two of them being what they were I didn’t stand much of a chance against the combination.
    Doctrine says that if you’re facing two opponents, you attack quickly and viciously and put one out as fast as possible, then give the other your undivided attention. If they’d been a couple of ordinary strong-arm types I wouldn’t have had a problem; they both would have been unconscious in no time.
    But with these two the question became: which one did I kill? If they’d been after my life I wouldn’t have hesitated, but they weren’t going to kill me. They just meant to see how close they could come, and unfortunately for me, that made all the difference. I went into standard attack-defense position, and got set to do what I could.
    Ringer and Val approached me slowly and warily, both knowing better than to treat me as an easy mark. I hadn’t put shoes or boots on when I’d dressed, but that wasn’t the disadvantage it might seem. A successful attack or defense depends on the body’s movements, knees bent to assure proper balance, arms and hands held to check an opponent’s movement or begin one of your own, mind alert to every danger or opening. The carpeting was soft under my feet but didn’t promise very stable footing, and I wondered how long the adrenaline in my bloodstream would keep me going.
    Ringer suddenly came in from my left, showing how fast he could move, his right leg flashing in a circle toward my ankles, trying to knock me off my feet. I jumped the leg and kicked out, catching him