"He's a Rajec. And a member of the _S'Relah_!"
"Oh, you realize that how, do you? Well, listen to me. He fought
fairly--had a dagger there in his belt, and could have used it. So he
gets a break."
She turned an angry face to him, started to speak, but he stopped her
with a gesture. "Quiet! Listen!"
* * * * *
From somewhere near came the sound of scuffing feet. Ketrik moved
swiftly to a little metal door between two buildings. This was the door
to the sewer, which in turn led into the secret tunnel. Presently it
opened, and Ketrik saw the yellowish glow of eyes. Rajec eyes, many of
them--perhaps eight or ten. Ketrik stepped back. He gave a burst with
the electro, allowed the beam to cut a frothing path very near the
doorway. The black figures drew back.
"You get these two, and that's all!" He indicated Aarnto and Vronu.
"Two of you step forward and get them. Quickly, now!" He gestured
meaningfully with the weapon.
Two of the Rajecs crept out, watching him all the while. They seized
the limp figures and dragged them back. Ketrik followed. "All the way!
Clear back into the tunnel. I'm letting you off easy. Be glad you don't
get Vaajo's torture plates for this night's work!"
He herded them all into the tunnel, then swung the pivoted door shut. A
steady play of the electro-beam fused the mechanism so that it wouldn't
work again, ever. He knew they might use their knives, loosen the stone
blocks enough to gain another entrance, but he didn't care about that
now.
He hurried back to the street, found Praana still waiting. Her fists
were clinched and her voice sharp. "You take a lot upon yourself! Those
were the _S'Relah_ and should be turned over to the Guard!"
Not a word of thanks, no show of gratitude. Ketrik let his own voice
rasp. "It isn't important. You were a little fool to leave the Palace!
Why did you do it?"
"Then you know I am the Princess Praana! And you--you dare to speak to
me like that!" She raised her fists, seemed about to strike him--then
a thought occurred. "Rilon--he--where is he? What happened?" Then she
shuddered, as though suddenly remembering.
"I suppose you mean your Guard," Ketrik said with no attempt to spare
her feelings. "He's lying back in the Street of the Double Moon with a
dagger through his heart, thanks to you."
"Thanks to me," she whispered, all the spirit gone out of her now.
"I shall never forgive myself! He warned me, tried to stop me, even
pleaded--and when I threatened to come alone...."
Ketrik said sternly, "Why should you want to come at all--to this
miserable part of the city?"
"You are right, I was a fool. Occasionally I send a servant to the shop
of one Jal Thurlo, to pick up a rare article that would never find its
way to Mars by the ordinary routes--you understand? This afternoon my
servant brought me exciting news. In his shop Jal Thurlo had a single
bottle of the perfume from the Deimian Temple of the Ancients! Can you
understand what that means? That rare, that glorious perfume...."
Yes, Ketrik could understand. He smiled at Aarnto's cunning. Women
would give their money, their jewels, everything they held precious,
for a single dram of that perfume which was so rare as to be almost
non-existent.
"But," Praana went on, "it was to be smuggled away from Mars tonight!
It was to go to the Princess Aladdian on Venus! The note said that if I
were to see Jal Thurlo tonight, I might persuade him--"
Ketrik felt suddenly sorry for her. She was almost in tears. "It was
a trick of the _S'Relah_," he said, "and Jal Thurlo knew nothing of
it. As for the Deimian perfume--my dear girl! I happen to know that
the last of it was smuggled to Earth some years ago, and sold for
a fabulous price." Ketrik neglected to mention that he himself had
engineered the feat.
She smiled wistfully. "You have saved my life, and I have learned a
great lesson. I owe you for both." She suddenly removed a bracelet of
Martian diamonds. Ketrik waved it away, and she frowned in puzzlement.
"Is it not enough?"
It was not nearly enough. What he wanted was to get beyond the
electronic wall. He came near to hinting at it, but checked himself. No
need to press his luck too far.
He bowed elegantly. "To have been of service to you, Princess, is
reward enough in itself."
She was impressed, insisted on knowing his name and where he could
be reached. He gave her the information with seeming reluctance. She
assured him she could make her way back to the palace alone. "You shall
be rewarded, nevertheless," were the last words Ketrik heard as she
drove the car away. And he smiled inwardly.
* * * * *
He was jubilant, retracing his route through the dark streets. Dar
Vaajo would certainly send for him tomorrow! For he knew that Praana
would tell her father of this.
It was just past the midnight hour, and suddenly he remembered
something. This was the hour ... but even as the thought crossed his
mind, the phenomenon came. It came as a greenish glow rising above the
city center, spreading swiftly outward. As it spread, like a blanket of
palely pulsing light, a frightening _malignancy_ came with it.
Then it touched upon Ketrik, and he reeled. The cold light was all
about him, surging through him. Tightening tendrils of it clutched
at his brain. A vast singing was in his ears. He fought back,
fought as his mind reeled upon a chaos of vertiginous horror! Those
light-tendrils tearing at his brain, eagerly, hungrily--here was Dar
Vaajo's weapon and he knew it, even as he fell to the street to lie
exhausted, his mind going away....
Still he tried to fight, knowing it was hopeless. An agony was in him,
tearing at his fingertips and through every muscle; wrenching at his
brain, seeking to tear it apart fiber by fiber. He felt his sanity
going; it was being _drained_ away as liquid is sucked through a
straw. He laughed once, wildly. He felt other light-tendrils seeking,
seeking hungrily all about him. With a last vestige of mental power he
remembered again a gibbering madman in a dark tunnel....
Then the light was going away. It receded, rushing back upon itself,
coalescing into a mass of greenish radiance that swirled and twisted
angrily and tried to escape. Almost _alive_! As Jal Thurlo had said!
Ketrik rose and stood swaying, his head throbbing, as he watched it
from afar.
Now the spherical mass of it, deeper in hue and pulsing angrily,
hovered in the sky just above Vaajo's laboratories. Suddenly the sphere
extended, became a pillar of pulsing light trying to leap away.
And it leaped away. Faster than light, swift as thought, hurtling
through the outer reaches of space.
Ketrik didn't stay to see more. He didn't need to. Even through the
cold needle-fires in his brain, he had enough faculty left to know that
far out in space, in that part of the heavens, swam the planet Earth.
Again this night Dar Vaajo was testing ... testing the power of his
curiously-alive weapon....
Ketrik reached the shop of Jal Thurlo, found the jar of _vanadol_ and
downed enough of it to put him into merciful oblivion.