her. With difficulty, he restrained himself. "How is
she?" he asked.

"She seems to be all right," the Queen said. "The substance they put
in her drink doesn't appear to have had any other effect than putting
her to sleep and making her a little sick--and that was a good thing."

"Oh, sure," Malone said. "That was fine."

"Well," Her Majesty said, "she did get rid of quite a bit of the drug
in the ladies' room." She smiled, just a trifle primly. "I think
she'll be all right," she said.

"There's a doctor on the way, anyhow," Malone said, staring down at
her. He tried to think of something he could do for her--fan her, or
bring her water, or cool her fevered brow. But she didn't look very
fevered. She just looked helpless and beautiful. He felt sorry for all
the nasty things he had said to her, and all the nasty things she had
said to him. If she got well--and of course she was going to get well,
he told himself firmly--things would be different. They'd be sweet and
kind to each other all the time, and do nice things for each other.

And she was definitely going to get well. He wouldn't even think about
anything else. She was going to be fine again, and very soon. Why, she
was hardly hurt at all, he told himself, hardly hurt at all.

"Sir Kenneth," Her Majesty said. "I've been thinking: while we were
about it, why didn't we just teleport all the way back home?"

Malone turned. "Because," he said, "we'd have had the devil of a time
explaining just how we managed to do it."

"Oh," she said. "I see. Of course."

"This teleportation gimmick is supposed to be a secret," Malone went
on. "We don't want to let out anything more about it than we have to.
As it is, there's going to be some fierce wondering among the Russians
about how we got out of that restaurant."

"Obviously," the Queen said, entirely unexpectedly, "a bourgeois
capitalistic trick."

"Obviously," Malone agreed. "But we don't want to start up any more
questions than we have to."

"And how about the plane itself?" Her Majesty went on. "Do you think
they'll let us take off?"

"I don't know how they can stop us," Malone said.

"You don't?"

"Well, they don't want to cause any incidents now," Malone said. "At
least, I don't think they do. If they could have captured us--me, or
Lou, or both of us, depending on which side of the argument you want
to take--anyhow, if they could have grabbed us on their own home
grounds, they'd have had an excuse. Lou