I couldn't hear what Heller was saying but he was being solicitous about the trainer's neck and was rubbing it for him. The primate then got up and came over to them and – it made both the trainer and Heller laugh-solemnly shook Heller's hand. Actually it was very funny for one doesn't expect apes to know much. I laughed myself – and it was the last laugh I had that day!

The trainer went over and got an electric whip. The giant was still out cold. Heller saw that it was under control and apparently decided that was all the exercise he was going to do today. He picked up his exercise suit top and slipped into it. Then he trotted across the room, threw a kiss to the Countess Krak and left the hall.

Knowing the guards outside would be hard on Heller's heels and that he was just going up to bathe and dress anyway, I lingered on a bit, my eyes on the Countess. Therewas my enemy, therewas the one stalling this mission.

She had had some minor success training the trainer but it was almost as if she had been waiting for Heller to leave. And, if I had been about to follow, I would have stopped because here she came, walking through the noisy hall toward me.

Well, I must say the guard Timyjo exercised good taste in his stealing. Or maybe Heller had specified it. But the Countess Krak was certainly gorgeous in her new turnout.

She was wearing brand-new, hip-length shimmering boots, black with gleaming brass heels. She had on flesh-colored tights and wore a tight, waist-length jacket of black leather and spangles. On her head, as a crown to her neck-length yellow hair, she wore a little visored hat, smaller at the top than around her head: it was glittering with black discs and it had a little plume upright at the center front. It was a costume patterned on the clothes she used to wear but oh what a new and expensive difference!

And she was beautiful. There is no arguing with that. She was fabulously, magnificently beautiful. My enemy. She sat down in a big chair across from me, her back to the room. She turned her perfectly formed face toward me.

"Soltan," she said, "you've got to help me!" And there were tears trembling in her eyes!

A little alarm bell started going off in my head. Was this the cold, emotionless Countess Krak? What new ploy was this? I have never trusted women and I certainly tripled that for the Countess Krak.

"Soltan," she continued, "Jettero has done the English. He has the New England and Virginia accents down perfectly. I even went off into slang and mannerisms and he has those. I have gotten him through Earth geography and geology. He has a grasp of political structures and demography for the planet. He has reviewed the peculiarities of the Solar System. . . ." One tear fell and coursed down her smooth cheek. Almost a wail came out of her. "Soltan, I have run out of things to teach him!" Oho and aha! I thought. And you're running out of ways to stall his departure!

"Soltan, can't you get me permission to teach him espionage? He will be in danger if he does not know that. And I don't think he has the basics of it." Lady, I thought, that is the understatement of all time.

"Countess," I said, hoping I didn't sound as smug and lofty as I felt, "Lombar gave very definite instructions about that."

"But why, Soltan, why? He'll be in danger if he doesn't understand a key subject like that!" And another tear spilled out.

"Lombar has his reasons," I said. For some reason I suddenly felt sick. "And Lombar's reasons are always good ones. I think he simply wants Heller to be more natural. You know how real special agents act: darting about, peering under garbage can lids, sure to draw attention to themselves. Right now Lombar could kill us both for what I'm permitting. It's really a very simple mission, just introducing a little technology onto the planet. ..." My attention was suddenly drawn to something happening behind her.

The giant had recovered. The assistant trainer was not to be seen. But the yellow-man was walking toward us. He was rubbing his elbow. He looked very annoyed. I felt a surge of fear.

The Countess was trying to think of some way to persuade me. She did not alert to the fact that I was staring at the giant. Maybe I was not being obvious. Maybe there was a tiny trace of hope that this murdering brute of a yellow-man now walking up behind her would kill her and solve all my problems. She was unarmed. I studiously kept my hands away from any of my own weapons.

She was sitting down. She was out of position. There was even a chair arm in her way if she tried to rise swiftly. The giant came on, rubbing his elbow, aggrieved, unnoticed by anyone but me. He stopped right behind her. From the look of him he was going to kill her. My hopes rose.

She was about to speak to me again, a pleading look on her face.

The yellow-man let go of his elbow and cuffed her shoulder hard!

He roared at her, "You keep that (bleepard) Heller away from me or I'll break his (bleeping) neck!" She swivelled in the chair and looked up at his towering height.

She snapped, "Don't you dare talk about Jettero that way!"' There was a hiss of indrawn breath from fifty people. The hall went tomb-silent instantly.

The giant slowly raised his arms to seize and strangle her. His voice was grating and every word held death. "I'll say anything about him I please! He's just a Devils (bleeped) Royal officer! A snotty, rotten, stuck-up (bleep)!" The arms came down.

Her face had gone white.

Her hand flashed to the back of her chair and it went spinning away!

She was over to his right!

There was a sound like a shot. I hadn't even seen her hand move but his left wrist was broken, dangling!

And then began a Devil's dance I shall not want to watch again.

This was no emotionless statue. This was a live ball of raging fury!

She hit him in the face with the backhand swing of her left.

She turned. Her right arm came swinging in in a wide sweep toward his face. Just before it hit, her right foot hit the floor, the brass heel cracked like a shot. It seemed to give the back of her hand a whiplike propulsion. The blow against his face was the crunch of breaking bones!

It had spun her to the right. Her left arm began a sweep back. Her left foot exploded on the floor. The back of her open hand impelled into his cheek and more bones broke!

This had carried her to the left. Her right arm went out. She turned back. The boot stamped! The hand crashed into his jaw!

The back of her left hand, the back of her right hand, one after the other like a remorseless machine, she drove him backwards.

The yellow-man had sixty feet of hall behind him. Step by punished step he was being driven backwards!

Blood was cascading down his chest. He was howling like a trapped animal!

Step by step, strike by strike she drove him back. A ghastly, precisely timed ballet of blood and punishment. Only those sounds, the stamp of a boot, the crash of the hand, the raging howl of the giant echoed in the room.

Fifty of the sixty feet he went, dying all the way.

And then he tried to counterattack!

He kicked at her! Had it connected it would have smashed her chest. But with perfect timing she seized the heel! Using his own momentum against him, she pulled the heel up until he lay horizontal in the air. Her foot lashed out at what remained of the giant's jaw.

Like a huge arrow he shot backwards. The electric shock machines were there. His head slammed into a machine arm. The sound was like an exploding melon! He crashed downward to the floor.

The Countess Krak was no cold killer now. She was a blazing fury. She followed up and stamped upon his chest, his arms, his face!

She drew off, panting, still angry. "You!" she pointed at the paralyzed cluster that was her crew. "Take him to the dispensary and get him patched up!" An assistant trainer crept to the yellow-man's side and felt in the mess for a heartbeat. The assistant trainer looked up. "He's dead." The Countess Krak was adjusting the chin strap of her cap which had been knocked askew. She said, "That'll teach him not to threaten Jettero!" Until that moment I had been only paralyzed. But when she said that, standing there fussing with her cap, standing there in the blood which now stained her new boots, a jolt of pure terror went through me.