She turned toward the wall. Her hand moved in a quick gesture. A panel
opened there in the glowing surface.
Kari reached in, and when she withdrew her arm, it was as though she
held a torrent of blood that poured down from her grip. It was a cloak,
Stuart saw, made of some material so fine that it rippled like water.
Its crimson violence was bizarre against the cool green of Kari's
garment.
"This cloak--" she said. "You must wear it if we face the Aesir."
Stuart grimaced. "What good is a piece of cloth? A blaster gun's what I
want."
"A blaster wouldn't help," Kari said. "This is more than a piece of
cloth, Stuart. It is half-alive--made so by the sciences of the Aesir.
Wear it! It will protect you."
She swung the great, scarlet billows about Stuart's shoulders. Her
fingers fumbled with the clasp at his throat. And then--
_She lies!_
The desperate urgency of the thought roared through Stuart's mind. He
knew that soundless voice, so sharp now with violent intensity. His
hands came up to rip the cloak from him--
He was too late. Kari sprang back, wide-eyed, as the fastenings of the
cloak tightened like a noose about Stuart's neck. He felt a stinging
shock that ran like white fire along his spine and up into his brain.
One instant of blazing disorientation, a hopeless, despairing cry in
his mind--a _double_ cry, as of two telepathetic voices--and then, his
muscles too weak to hold him, he crashed down upon the floor.
It was not paralysis. He was simply drained of all strength. There
was pressure about his throat, cold flames along his spine and in his
brain, and he could feel the texture of the cloak wrapped about him,
striking through his spaceman's garb--tingling, sentient, half-alive!
He whispered an oath. Kari's face had not changed. He read something
strangely like pity in her dark eyes.
From the gap in the wall whence she had drawn the cloak came a figure,
cloaked in black, a jet cowl hiding its head and face completely. It
was taller than the girl by a foot. It shuffled forward with an odd,
rocking gait, and paused near her.
Stuart whispered, "I--should have remembered. The--the Aesir can change
their shapes. Those giants I saw weren't real. And neither are you--not
even human!"
Kari shook her head. "_I_ am real," she said slowly. "_He_ is not." She
gestured toward the black-cloaked figure. "But we are all of the Aesir.
And, as we thought, you were sent by the Protectors. Now your power is
gone, and you must walk the Long Orbit with the other captives."
The cowled creature came forward. It bent, but Stuart could see nothing
in the shadow of the hood. A fold of cloth writhed out and touched
Stuart's forehead.
Darkness wrapped him like the shroud of the scarlet cloak.