She got up tired, and her husband’s solicitous inquiries did nothing for her frayed nerves.“I’m all right, Charles!” Her anger blazed: “I’ve just had a bad night—that’s all!” His hurt expression made her immediately relent. “I’m sorry, darling. Don’t worry—we women get like this at times.”Forbin, whose experience of women apart from Cleo was virtually zero, was moderately satisfied. He nodded and blinked a few times and left for his office.Cleo tried to stay within her normal routine, well aware that Blake’s grim little joke about “keep your head” was terrifyingly good advice. She lingered over a third cup of coffee on the terrace, her thoughts going like a ball on a pinball machine, always ending up in the same place with the same question: Was it really the Martians? And if so, what could they do? She hardly dared think that they might offer effective help, that Colossus might be beaten, that her son might have a real future as a free man… .Suppose it was a deadly game dreamed up by Galin?
