CHAPTER II

The walls and floor and ceiling and door of Shane's windowless cell all had the cold green glitter of pure telonium.

So did the handcuffs and leg-irons that shackled him.

But the bare metal cot hinged to one wall was of steel.

Telonium rated harder than steel, seventeen point seven times harder. Its tensile strength figured nine times greater.

Even so, it took Shane most of the night to tear loose one of the cot's cross-straps, using the locking lug of the leg-irons as combination pry-bar and cutter.

The cross-strap measured about two inches wide by two feet long. It had the weight and striking edge to cave in the skull of a Uranian _dau_.

Shane laid it down beside him on the cot, and waited for someone to open the cell door.

After awhile faint whispering sounds of motion drifted in; then a clicking noise.

Shane turned so that shadow half hid his face. He twisted his body in a semblance of restless sleep, and closed his eyes to lash-shuttered slits. His fingers caressed the cross-strap mace.

The door opened. The doorway framed a burly, tentacled Thorian guard.

Then the guard stepped aside and a woman came past him, into Shane's cell, carrying a small, cloth-draped tray. Young and straight and slim, she moved with a _tara's_ grace. Her high, firm breasts were bared in the _Malya_ fashion, and the dark loveliness of her face was _Malya_ also. Glistening blue-black hair hung clear to her waist in softly rippling waves.

Closing the vault-like door behind her, she crossed the cell to Shane's side: paused there for a moment, looking down at him.

Shane lay very still.

"_Gar_ of the asteroids, high chief of the _Chonyas_," the woman said softly, almost to herself. Her voice held a note that might have been weariness, or pain. "You've traveled far, Earthman ... so far, to have it all end here."

* * * * *

She moved on, to the stand that flanked Shane's cot, and busied herself at her tray for a moment. Then, straightening, she held a hypodermic injector up to the light. It contained a colorless liquid. Deftly, she set the screw, adjusted the high-pressure gas ampule that would spray the injection straight into the bloodstream without breaking the skin.

Shane twisted a fraction further around on the cot. His breathing was careful, measured.

Turning, the woman bent over him. She poised the injector, close to his throat.

Shane's manacled hands shot up. He caught the woman's wrist; twisted sharply before she could jerk away.

She gave a sharp little in-drawn cry of shock and pain and came down hard on her knees, lithe body writhing. The injector fell from her twitching fingers.

Shane's heel smashed it into the floor. Already, he was up and off the cot, forcing the woman down onto it.

He said tightly: "The first scream breaks your arm, _Malyalara_!"

"A _Malya_ does not scream, _Sha_ Shane!" she answered through clenched teeth.

She tossed her head as she said it, proud even through the pain, and for the first time the right side of her face came into full view.

And along that whole right side, someone had cropped the glistening black hair short, square with the temple, in the ugly, outlawed badge of slavery.

For a long moment Shane did not move. Then, slowly, he drew back a fraction and relaxed his grip on the woman's arm.

Some of the tightness left the lovely face. She rose in a single smooth, supple movement. No fear showed in her dark eyes, even now. Rather, they probed boldly--eagerly, almost--as if measuring Shane's metal.

"What do they call you, _Malyalara_?" he asked.

"My name is Talu, _Sha_ Shane."

"You wear your hair cropped like a slave's--"

"--Because I am a slave."

"The Federation banned slavery."

* * * * *

Bitterness twisted the woman's mouth. The midnight eyes burned with the fierce, blazing anger that had made her people the scourge of the void within the memory of living man. "I tell myself that every day, _Sha_ Shane. But it does not free me."

Shane's lips drew thin. "Has it been long?"

"About an Earth year. I was of Hidalgo. First, the slavers sent in _theol_-smugglers. They sought out our leaders--"

"I know," Shane nodded grimly. "_Theol_ breaks the will. Not even a _Malya_ can fight, with the hunger for it in him." He broke off. "And then, _Malyalara_--?"

"Then the slave ships came. What else?" Again Talu's ripe lips took on the bitter twist. "They came by the score--whole fleets of them, blasting and killing and hunting us down. The Federation had taken our proton batteries and our fighting ship away, and _theol_ had broken the men who should have led us. So they stripped Hidalgo bare: every man, every woman, every child--"

Shane's fingers dug into the slave girl's arms. "But where did they send you?" he demanded fiercely. "Who wants slaves in a solar system where power is broadcast free to all planets? What use is there for labor?"

"I do not know."

"My _Chonyas_ have been raided, too. But why?" Shane clenched his fists. "Why raid for slaves, when machines can handle any task? Where do they take them? Are they here, in this place?"

Talu shook her head. "No, not here. This is only a ramping-spot--some small moon the slavers have taken over. But I have seen a woman here, a silver woman--Kyrsis, they name her." A momentary tremor rippled through the _Malyalara_. "She is evil ... more evil than words can tell. They say that she is the agent for those who buy. But where she comes from, why her people seek slaves--that I do not know."

"And who serves her? Who is the raider, the _starbo_ whose wolf-pack gathers in the slaves?"

"His name is Reggar, Quos Reggar--"

"_Quos Reggar!_" Shane spat the name as if it were an epithet. "Slaver, smuggler, scum!" He twisted violently against his shackles, blue eyes blazing. "I should have known! I drove him out of the asteroids once--"

"--And he remembers, _Sha_ Shane," Talu said softly. "He remembers, and he hates you, and he swears the day will come when you shall pray for death. He has gathered up the scum of the spaceways, the dregs of the void--"

"You mean, he captured me only for vengeance?" Shane broke in. "He dragged me here just to kill me--?"

* * * * *

Talu shook her head. "No, _Sha_ Shane. There is more than vengeance. He has plans for using you, great plans. But that is all I know."

"But how did he capture me? How did he bring me here?" A haunted, haggard shadow flickered across Shane's face. He raised his manacled hands and held his head between them. "I was on a mission, an ... important ... mission, traveling through space. There was no sign of trouble. And then, all at once, the void went mad. It was a nightmare; I can't remember what happened--" He broke off, shaking his head as if to clear away the fog of memory. Then his hands fell, and his eyes met the girl's once more. "The next thing I knew, I was coming out of it on the ramp, with dirt in my mouth and a _Pervod_ at my throat. And I still don't know how I got here."

"It was a projector, they say. A Paulsini projector, focussed on your ship. They captured your minds with it--yours, and all your crews'."

Shane stared at her incredulously. "A Paulsini that can reach out into space and take over a ship--? You're mad as a _ban_!"

"They say it is the strongest Paulsini mind-control beam the universe has ever seen, _Sha_ Shane," Talu replied. "It was ten Earth years in the building. The power output would send a space ship beyond the stars."

Shane's eyes narrowed. "'The strongest Paulsini beam the universe has ever seen'," he repeated slowly. "It tells something, _Malyalara_. No common slaver ever had the brains or time or money to take on the building of such a machine as that." Thoughtfully, he stared down at his fetters. "And what happens, now that I'm here?"

"I do not know."

"You do not know?" Shane studied the woman's face. "Yet you came here, alone, with an injector, and tried to use it on me."

The other's hands moved in a small, helpless gesture. "The guard was to have done it, _Sha_ Shane. But I was there when Reggar gave the order. I had heard of you so many times. I wanted to see you...."

"What was in the injector?"

The girl shook her head. "I do not know. They do not trust me to know too much."

"They do not trust you?" Shane's eyes probed hers while the seconds ticked by. He flicked the shattered remnants of the crushed injector with his toe. "But they let you come to my cell alone." The faintest of edges crept into his voice. "And they kept you here on this moon with them, Talu, and sent the rest of your people on across the void to slavery."

* * * * *

For a long moment Talu stood motionless as some dark statue. Then, all at once, she began to tremble. Her eyes struck sparks. The bare breasts rose and fell too fast.

"Yes, they kept me," she whispered tautly, fiercely. "A woman can often find a place here ... for a time."

She swayed forward, and in that instant she seemed suddenly all passion, all temptress. Her body brushed Shane's. The warm, half-parted lips invited him. He stood rigid at the very nearness of her.

Then she drew away once more, and her face had the look of graven stone. "I have made it my business to be kept here, _Sha_ Shane," she said icily. "My body is good, and _Malya_ blood runs hot, and even slavers can lose their caution. So I stay, and earn what trust I can, and do such work as brought me here. For my grandfather was Toran, the last great _Malya_ raider chief. He taught me the old way, the _Malya_ way--that blood cries out for blood. I live for the day when my chance will come, and I can let my knife drink deep from the heart of the monster, Quos Reggar, who set the slavers on Hidalgo!"

Grim-faced, Shane studied her. "You say the words, Talu," he clipped, "but will you prove it?"

"Prove it--?"

"The _Chonya_ chiefs gave me a belt--the great iron belt of the asteroids, the symbol of my power as _gar_. I swore an oath when I took it ... an oath that the _Chonyas'_ blood and tears would be my own."

Wordless, the woman watched him, her face a mirror of mixed emotions.

"They have taken my belt away, Talu, these slavers who raid _Malya_ and _Chonya_ alike. They have locked me here like a berserk _vrong_, and thrown the key away. But my oath still stands. The _Chonyas_ made me _gar_ because I knew how to fight, and feared no man. So I'll fight here."

The fierce eagerness crept back into Talu's face. Her hands clutched his. "Yes, yes! But what can you do?"

"I'll carve my way, _Malyalara_! I'll give them blood for blood and tears for tears, till the asteroids breath free again!" The ring of steel on steel was in Shane's voice. His face was carved with rocky lines. "You told me that a _Malya_ does not scream, Talu. But if you _were_ to scream, just once, would that slimy Thorian guard outside pay heed?"

She caught her breath. "And ... if he did--?"

Shane smiled a thin, hard, ruthless smile. "Even in leg-irons I can drag myself to the door." He bent over the cot and pulled free the broken cross-strap; slashed with it so it sighed and whispered through the air. "It sings a song of death, Talu!"

The woman's midnight eyes burned murder-bright. Her voice was a breathless whisper: "Strike hard and straight and fast, _Sha_ Shane...."