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and innocent I was, and how attractive.”
    I blushed here, then hurried on.
    “He had almost come to some sort of an agreement with one of the men, when another of them grew angry and kidnapped me and beat me. That man was stopped by the Pleasure Sphere Management, and then they insisted that my uncle take me away. They said something about not wanting competitors, but I don’t understand what they meant.”
    The doctor was becoming more and more grim, but he didn’t interrupt.
    “When I woke up here on the Station,” I continued, “my uncle warned me not to say a word to anyone about what had happened. He’s … punished me before, so I was afraid to try to get any help. Then that man Ringer came, and I think my uncle works for him. They’re going to do something horrible to me, I just know it, but what can I do? I ran away from the hospital because I’m frightened, but they found me and brought me here. I insisted I was all right because I can’t face going back to that bed, to just lie there and wonder what’s to become of me! So you see, Doctor, there’s really nothing you can do.”
    I looked away again, as if I had no more tears left to cry with.
    “We’ll see what I can and can’t do,” the doctor growled as he straightened up, quietly furious. “We have excellent security people on this station, and I’m sure they’ll be very interested in hearing your story.”
    “Oh, no,” I protested with shy despair. “You can’t tell the security people. My uncle still has those papers, and they’ll be forced to turn me over to him again. I can’t bear to think what he’d do to me then.”
    That part of it wasn’t a lie. If I ever had to face Ringer and Val in front of security people, I’d be lucky to get out of it still alive.
    “But I can’t just walk away and leave you here!” the doctor returned with seething frustration, running a hand over the top of his head. “There must be something that can be done!”
    “If only I could get to Barancelle,” I sighed, letting my gaze turn far away. “Mother –
    I – have relatives there. I’m sure they would protect me, especially if the security force held those two people here for a few days. But I have no way of buying a ticket … I have no money and I’m a minor, so I might as well forget about it.”
    I put my face in my hands wearily, but I felt like holding my breath instead. Hook number two was dangling in front of him.
    “Don’t you worry about the price of the ticket, young lady,” the man bit hard, patting my shoulder comfortingly. “You just leave everything to me. Barancelle sounds like just the place for you, and I’m going to see that you get there.”
    I raised an unbelieving face to him, then let some hope show through.
    “Do you really mean that, Doctor?” I asked, wide-eyed. At his smiling nod, I shook my head just a little. “I don’t know how I can ever thank you for this.”
    “You needn’t even try,” he told me with a smile, patting my hand this time. “If every cure required of me was as easy to manage as this one, I’d be the most famous doctor in practice. Are you sure you have no leftover aches or pains?”
    “None at all,” I assured him, discounting the tiredness I felt. Even if I hadn’t gotten back to tiptop, peak condition yet, I had no need to be fussed over in a hospital bed.
    Doctors being doctors, he had to have a look at my wrists, but as bad as they’d been they’d also been the easy part, and were obviously well on the way to being healed. He replaced the old bandages with new ones, repacked his bag, then gazed at me thoughtfully.
    “You know,” he mused, “it would be easier to get you on the liner if you came back to the hospital area with me now. What do you say? Are you willing to tell them you’re not feeling as well as you thought?”
    The idea was an attractive one, but that was one thing I couldn’t do. I’d made such a stink about not going back, Ringer was sure to get