"Now that it doesn't make any difference any longer," I coaxed, "why don't you let us in on all this?"
"For a Marine," Varda said tauntingly over her shoulder, "you are terribly curious."
"This is some sort of a spy racket, isn't it?" I persisted.
"It isn't a kidnaping service," Shane put in sarcastically.
"Corporal Cork is correct in his first assumption," Varda said cheerfully. "This is a spy racket."
I turned my eyes as best I could to Shane.
"Hello, loudmouth," I reminded him. "Any old plans of the Admiral's today?"
"As a matter of fact," Varda put in conversationally, "you are all wrong in assuming that Sergeant Shane told me anything of value this afternoon. However, we will be able to get plenty of valuable information from the two of you concerning other topics of your work."
"You think," I snarled, forgetting my role of pumper.
"We know," Varda corrected us cheerfully. "We are not above a little scientific torture."
"That's no surprise," Shane snapped.
"Would it interest you two bold, brave Space Marines to know that you materially aided us, and hindered your Federation when you beat up those two men who followed me this evening?"
I had almost forgotten the incident, in the ensuing trouble. But something in Varda's tone gave me an awful premonition that all was not too bad to be worse.
"Say that again," I gulped. "And then go on to explain."
"The 'thugs' to whom you administered such a thorough threshing tonight were your Federation's own Secret Service Officers," Varda giggled.
"Federation Secret Service Officers?" Shane and I screamed the words almost simultaneously.
Varda was choking with laughter now.
"Yes. You beat up two of your own Federation's officers!"
Things, in the cold sickness that followed, were not bad any longer. They were quite definitely worse!
"It should be interesting," Varda was giggling, "to see the esteem in which you two masterful Marines will be held, when your Admiral learns what you have done."
I had a mental vision of the Admiral, Old Ironpants, pointing a bony finger at Shane and me and saying,
"Three hundred years in the brig for you boobs!"
"Oooohhh," Shane moaned. "And to think that just a minute ago my only worry was a mere de-ranking and brig sentence for prolonged A.W.O.L.!"
Both the fat slob and the mustached snake were laughing uproariously with Varda at our mental agony—which didn't add to the pleasantness of the journey.
SHANE and I lapsed into a gloomy silence. We didn't want to know any more. We knew too much already. Another half hour passed, and the mustached snake was paying less and less attention to us. It wasn't really necessary to watch us closely anyway, for there was nothing we could do in the way of heroics to aid our situation. Varda had tied us neatly and completely.
During this interval Shane had been twisting uncomfortably every now and then, and I wondered what in the hell this not so spartan display was getting him when I suddenly noticed a tiny metallic gleam beneath the ropes that tied his hands behind his back.
