Roal shrugged. He had spent his career in a job where identification of
individuals was a critical factor, but he still could not tell if those
Martians now sitting about the room were or were not among the group
that had been there on his first visit.
Toomar turned back into the passage from which he had come. Roal and
Shorty followed closely.
The passage wound with interminable crooks and turns until their sense
of direction was hopelessly lost, and still they kept going down. Roal
believed they must have gone down five or six hundred feet at least
when Toomar finally halted before a closed door.
"In here," he directed.
Roal hesitated, then stepped in as Toomar flung the door open.
In the moment that it took for the scene within the room to crystallize
on the retinas of the two Earthmen, Toomar slammed the door and bolted
it. And his dry, cracked voice announced, "The Earthmen have come,
Master."
Roal and Shorty needed no other invitation to go for their flame
lances. Even as their arms whipped up the dry limbs of the Martian's
arms pinned Roal's hands. Shorty's lance swung from his hip in a single
motion and burned a hole through Toomar's face as Roal hurled the
Martian over his shoulder into the faces of the Martians in the room.
His gun up then, Roal still hesitated in the shock of recognition as
the man across the room turned from a table to face him. It was the
giant Sebours, father of Mariana--Alayna.
A vicious Martian word snarled from his lips as he leaped behind
protecting shelves, drawing a gun. Then from doorways on either side,
a stream of Martians flowed into the room like a pile of dry sticks on
the breast of a wave. But they were like no Martians Roal had ever seen
before. There were guns in their hands, spurting lines of flames toward
the Earthmen.
"In here!" Roal shouted to Shorty. He leaped through an open door
beside him into a sort of storeroom lined with shelves of chemicals and
electrical equipment.
They were out of sight of the enemy for an instant and had time to
catch a breath and a glimpse of their surroundings. The place looked
like some biological or chemical laboratory. Sebours was dressed in a
sterile garb as if about to perform some dissection or operation, they
had noted. And he seemed to be in complete charge, for the Martians
called him master, and hastened to obey him.
Roal and Shorty stationed themselves on each side of the doorway. As
the Martians made futile attempts to burn them down the Earthmen slew
them as they appeared in the line of sight. They were safe enough for
the moment, but they didn't have time or ammunition enough to kill all
the Martians that could attack. It was only a temporary stalemate.
On Roal's side there was a small window, evidently for passing supplies
from the storeroom to the laboratory. But it was at right angles to the
doorway and did not look out upon the main part of the laboratory. Roal
had avoided getting in line with the window, but he glanced towards it
hoping to find a means of escape.
Beyond the window was a polished wooden cabinet in which the lights of
the room reflected. The cabinet door was half open and moving slowly
with the motion of the air in the room. As Roal watched it idly he saw
in its polished surface a distorted reflection of the laboratory.
Suddenly, in the reflecting surface, he saw Sebours cautiously leave
his place of hiding and warn the Martians to stand guard. Then he
returned to the table where he had been working. The swinging door
shifted the reflection out of Roal's vision, but in that instant he had
seen something that turned him cold.
On the table where Sebours was working lay a still form. A human body
graced with a head of golden hair like none that Roal had ever seen.
Except once--
Alayna.
* * * * *
He wished the door would swing back. But as if in confirmation of his
identification a low cry of terror suddenly shot through the room. And
it was Alayna's voice. Roal knew that he could never mistake it.
He called to Shorty in a hoarse whisper. "They've got Alayna out there
and that big ape is doing something to her. We've got to rush them."
"We can't. They'd mow us down before we got out the door."
"We can't let him maim her, either. I'm going out. Coming?"
"Don't be a fool!" Shorty pleaded. "We've got to use our brains. You're
no good to Alayna dead."
"Yeah, you're right," Roal admitted. "What I just saw out there got me,
but--if that window were only facing Sebours--"
"We could burn a hole through the wall. That might be our best bet.
You could nail him in the back--provided a Martian didn't poke a lance
through and blast your hand off the minute you got it through."
"Yeah, that wouldn't work."