CHAPTER X

"Here Is Life!" the vendor cried. "Fresh life from new planets! Young slaves, with the hot blood surging through their veins! And all yours--yours for the asking, going for the price you set yourselves!" He struck a note on a silver gong. "Look at this next wench--a warm and vibrant thing, my friends, throbbing with life and spirit! What am I offered for her?"

The woman on the block was Venusian, a weary, fading creature with the sucking tube and ear-stalks of the _Transmi_. Her eyes were veined with weeping, her sagging face shadowed with fear and fatigue.

"Come! Make the first bid!" cried the vendor. "Who'll start it? Do I hear five hundred?"

"Fifty," called a voice from the rear of the crowd.

"Fifty! Do you seek to insult me? She's worth five hundred if she is a _xi_--"

"You mean, you insult us, vendor," the bidder retorted caustically. "A fool can see that the life runs low within her. She would not last the night."

"Fifty!" cried the vendor. "I'm offered fifty, friends. Who'll raise it to sixty?"

No one spoke. After a moment, the vendor struck the silver gong again. "Sold to Callan at fifty!" He pushed the Venusian down the steps. "Get on with you, woman...."

An attendant pushed Shane forward, heavy with irons. "An Earthman, vendor--"

The vendor struck the gong. "An Earthman, my friends; a fighting man--powerful, surging with life in spite of his wounds. Who'll start it--?"

Coldly, Shane swept the auction room with his glance.

Here, in front, on one side, were the slaves--a motley assortment, dragged to this final degradation from a dozen far-flung planets. One by one, they were thrust upon the block, exposed to the ghoulish appraisal of the crowd that filled the room.

The crowd. A crowd of silver men and women, with gleaming hair and violet eyes and pale, translucent skins. A hundred hungry-eyed, avid brothers and sisters of _Shi_ Kyrsis.

* * * * *

Even the room itself was strange. The materials resembled nothing known anywhere in all the void. The lush decor followed an alien theme.

"This man is good for long-time use!" exhorted the vendor. "See the strength of him--the fire and vigor! You cannot pass him by...."

A door to Shane's right opened. A woman came in, a silver woman.

_The_ woman.

Kyrsis.

An old man close to the block called eagerly, "I'll give a hundred, vendor!" in a thin, cracking voice.

"A hundred I'm offered! Now who'll make it a hundred and fifty? No one can afford to let this strong man go at a mere hundred--"

"Hundred and ten!" someone shouted.

Kyrsis turned. For the first time, her eyes met Shane's, and she stopped suddenly, staring as if paralyzed.

"Hundred twenty!"

"Hundred thirty!"

"Do I hear a hundred forty? Surely no fine, strapping fighting man can go for less--"

"Two hundred," Kyrsis said.

"Two hundred! The Lady Kyrsis bids two hundred--"

"Two fifty, vendor!" cried the old man by the block.

"Three hundred," came back Kyrsis.

"Do I hear three fifty--?"

"With his wounds, he is worth no more than three," the old man mumbled.

"Three twenty-five then! Do I hear three twenty-five?"

"Three ten--"

"Three fifty," echoed Kyrsis.

The vendor paused and looked about. "Three fifty is bid...." He struck the gong. "Sold to the Lady Kyrsis for three fifty."

Shane left the block, strode to the silver woman's side; and for a moment they stood there in vibrant silence, alone in the crowd, duelling with their eyes.

Then Kyrsis asked: "What dark fate brought you here, _Gar_ Shane? When I last saw you, you were hewing a path through the _Malya_ horde at the arena...."

"And you were in the prisoners' cage." The Earthman ignored the strange tremor in the silver woman's voice. His words were clipped. "Talu and I escaped and fled Amara in a flyer. But one of Quos Reggar's slavers sucked us in and brought us here."

"The slavers came to rescue Reggar," Kyrsis said. "They swept Amara clean." She looked down, breathing deep as if to still some inner tension. And then: "Talu was with you? They brought her here--?"

"--and put here aside. Her hair was cropped, so they knew she already had a master." Shane laughed harshly. "Me--I'd worn no yoke, so they sent me to the block."

"Then ... let us go. I have already done my other buying." The tremor in Kyrsis' voice was stronger, now--a sort of undercurrent of strange excitement.

"Your 'other buying'--?"

"A few young slaves to ... to train for household use." The silver woman's fingers trembled, cold as ice, upon Shane's arm. "Come! Let us go now--quickly--"

* * * * *

She led Shane out, through other rooms, where other vendors hawked their wares, and other slaves stood shamed or sobbing, bared to the eager, weirdly-lusting eyes of the silver people.

Then they reached a sort of transit station, and an attendant brought a car of a type Shane had never seen before, and they got in.

Three frightened children, a _Malya_ boy of perhaps twelve and two _Chonya_ girls even younger, huddled at the back, their dark eyes big with panic.

"Your slaves, Lady Kyrsis?" Shane asked coldly. The barb in his voice would have slashed through the scales of a _zanth_.

The silver woman kept her eyes on the controls. The car hurtled off through a tube-like passage. She did not answer.

Then the car halted. They got out--Shane, Kyrsis, children--and entered rooms, rooms luxuriously furnished in the alien style of the silver people.

"And now?" Shane inquired thinly.

Kyrsis' breathing was fast and shallow, her face even more pale than before. She spoke too rapidly, in a ragged, uneven voice. "You are weary, Shane, so weary. You must rest now. Here--let me take off your shackles. There is a room here you will like--a quiet room...."

She unlocked the cuffs on his wrists and tossed them aside, then led him swiftly to an adjoining sleep chamber. Foam-soft cushioning a foot thick blanketed a dais along one wall, big enough for a dozen men. A lingering perfume filled the air. Soft lights cast a silvery glow. From somewhere came faint strains of elfin music.

"Rest here, Earthman," the silver woman said softly. "Rest until I call you...."

For a moment her icy fingers touched his cheek. Then she left the room, closing the door behind her.

Shane stared after her, a frown furrowing his brow. After a moment, he stepped to the door, tried the handle.

It was locked.

* * * * *

Shane's frown deepened. He rubbed a grimy hand across his cheek where the cold of Kyrsis' fingers still lingered; finally turned to a more thorough inspection of his quarters.

As he pivoted, light glinted on the glass-like surface of the wall that flanked the door--caught a vague flicker of movement.

Shane moved on across the chamber with no sign that he had seen it.

An alcove held a radiation bath. The Earthman stepped into the cubicle and flipped the switch, luxuriating under the warm tingle of the molecular bombardment. Slowly, the sweat and dirt and grime faded from his body, the dried blood washed away. The worst of the weariness left his muscles. His bones almost stopped aching.

Refreshed, he snapped off the radiation and, leaving the cubicle, drank greedily from a crystal bubbler set beside it.

Now he went back to the sleeping chamber. His eyes flickered over the spot in the wall beside the door.

The surface showed blank and dead as the rest.

Shane grinned sourly to himself; crossed the room and tried the door once more.

It was still locked.

The Earthman hesitated. Then, grimly, he braced one foot on the casing beside the lock, gripped the handle, and threw his full weight on it.

Inside the lock, something snapped. The handle twisted askew.

Again Shane tugged, his muscles swelling with the strain.

The broken handle pulled from its socket. Inserting a forefinger in the hole, Shane manipulated the lock, pulled back the bolt.

The door swung open.

Shane stepped outside. He glanced at the wall behind the spot where he had seen the movement.

* * * * *

A picture hung there. Lifting aside, he found a small, hinged panel. Opening it, he discovered that a lens set behind the shiny coating of the inner wall enabled him to survey the entire sleep chamber.

Again, the sour grin twisted Shane's lips. Swiftly, he strode through the silence, checking the other rooms. He found them empty, all but one. Its door was locked.

The Earthman drew back a moment.

A picture hung a few feet to one side of the locked door.

Shane stepped over to it and lifted it from the wall.

It concealed another peep hole. Shading his eyes, the Earthman peered through the lens.

Kyrsis was within ... Kyrsis and one of the captive _Chonya_ girls.

The silver woman held the child upon her lap. She was talking to her--smiling, squeezing the chubby hands. Her manner was gentle, tender.

Yet under it all, somehow, hung a weird, unholy note--grotesque, obscene.

Some of the fear had left the child's eyes now. She smiled wanly ... nestled, not quite so tense, in the silver woman's arms.

Kyrsis' eyes closed. Her lips parted, and Shane knew that she was singing as she rocked the child.

The child's lips drooped. Trustingly, the small arms half-embraced the silver woman. The tired head rested on Kyrsis' breast.

The child slept.

Now new emotions came to Kyrsis' lovely face ... strange passion--a horrid anticipatory glow. Her nostrils flared. Her violet eyes grew large, gleamed with fires older than time itself. She cradled the child. Ever so tenderly, yet with a terrible air of strain, her parted lips sought the girl's.

Shane stood frozen, breathing hard, tight in indecision's grip.

The child moved languidly in Kyrsis' arms--restless, not struggling, and for a moment the silver woman straightened, sucked in air. Then, again, she pressed her lips against the girl's.

Shane cursed beneath his breath and turned towards the door.

But even as he did so, Kyrsis rose, the child still in her arms. The silver woman's face was serene now, ethereally beautiful, unmarred by any trace of strain. Gently, she laid down the still form of the child. Then, coming erect again, she moved towards the door.

Shane slid the picture back into place and stepped out of sight in the adjoining room.

* * * * *

The door to the room in which Kyrsis had been, opened and closed. The silver woman passed down the hall, out of sight.

Tense, silent, Shane made for the room from which she'd come.

The door was unlocked now. Swiftly, he slipped inside and stepped to the couch where the _Chonya_ child still lay, so very still. He touched the soft hand. Lifted it with trembling fingers.

Behind him, the door-latch clicked.

Shane turned.

Kyrsis stood watching him. "You come unannounced, Earthman," she murmured coolly.

"I came in as you left," Shane said, and of a sudden his hands, his voice, his whole body, were shaking uncontrollably, gripped in a paroxysm of surging fury. "I saw you here, with the child! Do you hear me? I saw you--!"

"So...?" Kyrsis' face was still calm, the violet eyes unfathomable.

The veins at Shane's temples stood out, throbbing. With a tremendous effort, he brought his voice under a semblance of control.

He said: "This child is dead!"