"Soon." Mertaan took a small, strange-looking weapon from his pocket.
It resembled a pistol enough to be identified as such. "I wish I could offer you arms, but smuggling them in was very risky. What few we have are in the hands of picked warriors."
Sweat was standing out on Mike's brow. "Never mind the guns. I just hope it's soon. The next one to go into that vat is a girl who--"
The Baserite's eyes filled with quick sympathy. "One of you, my friend?"
"One of us."
"I can only hope the ships come first."
Mike licked his dry lips. "But if they don't--you say you have some guns--the keys." He was looking at the Baserite with fixed calculation, his thoughts transparent.
Mertaan had no difficulty in divining them. "We cannot move until the ships come. If you strive to change this I shall kill you swiftly and silently. I shall kill everyone in the cell to ensure silence."
Mike's look remained fixed. He knew he did not have the courage to watch Doree die horribly when there was a key and a weapon within his reach. He deliberately forced the cold look from his face but whether the Baserite's suspicion was lulled, he could not tell.
Mertaan smiled coldly and said, "There is another of your kind in the cell block."
Mike took a step forward, but the Baserite stepped warily back. "An old man?" Mike asked.
"A very old man. He is four cells down. We know nothing of him because no one can speak his language."
Professor Brandon! Mike sent up a silent prayer of thanksgiving. "He will be released when the time comes?"
"If he chooses. None will be forced to go against their wishes, but I cannot imagine anyone refusing."
Mike turned to the bars gripping them hard. Several priests were working ghoulishly over the body of the dead Baserite. Mike looked toward the various entrances to the pit. Through which of these would they bring Doree? He prayed that none of the doors would open.
But as though part of a plan to torture him, one of the doors opened suddenly. Two guards came through.
They were leading Doree.
She was very pale and seemed to Mike to have grown increasingly beautiful. She wore a simple golden robe and the guards did not treat her as roughly as they had handled the Baserite. Small consolation.
She had found a great courage and walked serenely with her head held high and Mike's pride and love almost burst his heart. Desperately he tried to keep control over himself.
Doree advanced under close scrutiny of the guards to the point at which the Baserite had been slain. She appeared empty of all fear.
Then a priest advanced and stood for a moment looking at her. In his hands he held two lengths of golden chain. A great silence fell over the watching prisoners in the cells, every eye glued on the priest and this beautiful girl.
Then a great roar of anger arose as the priest reached out and whipped Doree's gown from her body. She stood naked in the center of the pit.
Mike went mad. With a roar he turned and hurled himself upon Mertaan.
The latter, even though sharply alert for attack, was not quick enough to get his weapon into action against Mike's lightning rush. Mike closed with him and they went down.
The Baserite was probably the stronger of the two, but his strength was no match for Mike's demoniacal rage. His hands went around the Baserite's throat. "Must I kill you?" he snarled, "or will you give me the key?"
There was no fear in Mertaan's expression but now, under pressure of Mike's steel fingers, it changed. He appeared to be listening for his own death.
But not for his death. He tore frantically at Mike's fists and got a few words past them. "Listen--listen, man! Can't you hear them? The ships are coming over! The time is now!"
Mike could not understand the words but the meaning got through to him as a high whining sound transcended the roar of the prisoners. And Mike realized the roar had not been caused by the priest's unveiling of Doree's beautiful body, but by the whine from above. The prisoners knew that the moment had come and they were already pouring from the cells.
Mike sprang to his feet and lifted the Baserite. The latter snatched the key from his jacket and unlocked the front cell-gate. Mike went through first to find himself packed into a plunging, screaming mob.
Here and there he spotted a Baserite frantically trying to establish some sort of order in the ranks of the prisoners. But they remained a snarling, bloodthirsty wave of disorganized vengeance. Mike tore his way savagely through the pack with Nicko and M'Landa close behind him.
"We've got to get down first!" he yelled. "She'll be killed in the rush!" Even now, below them, the panicked priests were knocking each other down in their rush for the exits.
Nicko pushed forward. "Let me go first! I'll make way!"
And he did. He flexed his scales until each one stood out from his ugly body like a razor-edged knife. Then he charged the mob. Blood splashed until Nicko was a great red smear. Those he hit screamed in pain and fell back, leaving an avenue down which the three raced.
They came to a stairway and as they tumbled into the pit, Mike looked swiftly over his shoulder. He was thinking of Mertaan's weapon. But it was not available. Mertaan had been lost in the mob of screaming prisoners.
Mike snatched up an odd-looking instrument from a table he passed. He knew nothing of its original use but it would make an excellent club.
He baptized it by catching a fleeing, terrified priest and splitting his skull with one blow. This brought him within a few steps of where Doree lay. She had been knocked to the floor as the desperate priests sought to escape the wrath of their prisoners.
Mike's eyes were only for her. He did not see a guard nearby who turned suddenly and charged him with the flat ugly sword gripped tight in his fist. Mike knelt down to lift Doree. The sword plunged down.
But instead of going into Mike's back, it was driven deep into the breast of M'Landa who had hurled himself forward.
Nicko, with a curse bellowed in some obscure dialect, leaped forward and took the guard into his hands. He lifted the guard and held him aloft with one hand. With the other he tore the man's throat out and hurled him dying and bloody across the pit.
The whole building trembled at that moment, obviously from a bomb hurled off a Baserite ship. But Mike and Nicko were scarcely aware of this new thunder. Mike had set Doree on her feet and was now holding the fallen H'Lorkan warrior in his arms. Gently he withdrew the sword.
There was a lump in his throat. He said, "Thanks, friend. You'll never be forgotten. I will always remember."
M'Landa smiled. He spoke and Nicko interpreted. "This is a fine worthy death. I could ask for no more. I die pleasantly, in the hope that the Ptomenites are brought down forever."
Then he was dead and there was no time to mourn him. "Back upstairs,"
Mike said. "Your father is in a cell there. We've got to get him and then find a way out of here and to the ship--if we aren't too late.
I've got a hunch McKee and Talbott will be heading in the same direction."
Nicko had picked up Doree's robe. He threw it over her shoulders and he and Mike formed a cordon in front and in back of the girl, Nicko going first. They headed for a stairway while all about them bloody slaughter was taking place.
The priests had found the exit doors mysteriously locked and what few guards were in the pit proved to be helpless against the outraged horde from above. The priests and the guards were being torn to pieces as though by the fangs of maddened dogs. The screams of terror and agony were a crescendo drowning the whine of the ships overhead.
Professor Brandon was crouching in the far corner of the cell. A man of peace, this place of blood and confusion was beyond his conception.
He was in a daze, his mind having thrown up a buffer against horror.
Doree's arms went around him but Mike pushed her back almost roughly.