CHAPTER III

The fleet-bell was tolling the nineteenth hour before the _ktar_ came down.

Lying in the darkness, waiting for him, Jarl battled in stubborn silence against the pain. He found himself giving heed to a thousand little things--the roughness of the pollard-weave against his lacerated cheek ... a prowling _peffok's_ distant cry. Faint, pervasive scents of doloid dust, of must and _jeol_, pressed in upon him. He savored the raw taste of blood in his mouth ... the saltiness of sweat when he ran his tongue along his lips. Once, dimly, he caught the harsh rasp of Ungo's voice, drifting to him from some other room.

Ungo of Jupiter, Big Ungo the loyal. He'd come here, protesting, on a fool's mad mission. And now....

A flood of black doubt welled up in Jarl Corvett--doubt of himself, his world, his cause. Would his dreams end here, in this dreary cell? Would morning find him lancing out through space on his way to Venus and the _slan_-chambers?

And ... would Wassreck die?

Writhing, fists clenched, he tried to drive the vision of the burning eyes, the pain-racked body, from his brain.

But the image, the dark thoughts, would not go away.

Because Wassreck was on Venus already. Wassreck had no hope, save in him, Jarl Corvett....

An incoherent, protestful sound rose in his throat. Spasmodically, he gripped the bunk's chill metal frame; twisted as if to rend it, tear it apart.

The effort made his tortured muscles shriek with pain. His ears rang. The room rocked wildly. He gasped and sagged forward, plunging down through green-and-purple depths of icy fire into a bottomless, slowly-eddying pool.

Then the pool resolved. Of a sudden he was looking into Sais' dark eyes. She was smiling at him, a tender smile, and her fingers were cool against his cheek, her soft lips welcoming his.

But a misty barrier rose between them ... a barrier of heart and mind that seared like a white-hot iron: _How can I face her? What can I say, if her father dies?_

He cried aloud, a hoarse, choked cry, and Sais' face vanished. Once more, the room closed in upon him. Again he lay straining on the bunk--tasting the blood, drinking in the stink of doloid dust and _jeol_.

Sais, and Wassreck. Wassreck, and Sais.

He wondered if he'd ever see either of them again.

Somewhere outside, a vague new stir of movement broke the stillness.

Jarl stiffened. For a moment he grasped the knife. Then, relaxing, after a moment's hesitation, he slid the sleek blade out of sight beneath his leg.

The sounds drew nearer; finally paused outside his cell. A blur of muffled, grumbling words seeped through the door. The bolt clicked back.

It was the _ktar_, a dead-white, four-armed _kroy_ of Ganymede. Flicking on the light, adjusting the vocodor translator, the creature brushed smoothly into the room. Behind him, the _fala_ guard lounged idly back against the jamb, thumbs hooked in belt.

* * * * *

Jarl shifted, then lay still again, not speaking. He was thankful to Atak--thankful the _Malya_ had sent a Ganymedan _ktar_. Few were more talented or highly skilled or kind.

The _ktar_ crossed to him and set down the globe that held the impedimenta of the healing craft. "How is it, raider?"

Jarl grunted and lifted his shoulders a fraction in a shrug.

The _ktar_ probed the cuts that gashed Jarl's back with deft, sure, pseudopodal fingers. "Nasty. That thrice-cursed _stanal_ buckle bit deep." Swiftly, he cleaned the wounds and applied the healing gel.

Jarl winced and clenched his teeth.

"Up, now," the _ktar_ commanded. "Let me at your face."

Stiffly, Jarl twisted. Keeping the precious knife covered with his buttocks, he swung his legs to the floor and sat up.

The _ktar_ worked on in silence for a time. Then, at last, he straightened. "That does it." He laughed--wry, almost bitter. "By the time you get to Venus, you'll be in the best shape to die."

Picking up the globe, he pivoted and, with the peculiar floating motion of his kind, moved towards the door.

Jarl gripped the haft of the telonium _skrii_. Tension came alive in him, hot and quivering. Rising from the bunk, he followed the _kroy_, holding the knife out of sight behind him. "I thank you, _ktar_...." He dared say no more for fear his voice might betray him.

The Ganymedan muttered something incoherent and passed out into the hall. The _fala_ guard, in turn, planted a many-jointed arm appendage hard against Jarl's chest and roughly shoved him back. His mottled throat-sac quivered. "No farther, _chitza_!"

Wordless, Jarl swayed. He made a show of cringing.

The _fala_ laughed harshly. His bulging eyes flicked to the hall outside. Turning, he gripped the door-handle and started to pull the portal shut.

Jarl leaped at him like a pouncing _zanth_, stabbing for the throat-sac with the keen-edged _skrii_ blade.

The point bit in, even as the Martian tried to throw up a warding arm. What might have been a shout came out as a rush of blood and bubbling air.

The _fala_ tottered, coughing out his life. Down the corridor, the Ganymedan whirled.

Jarl snatched the ray-gun from the toppling guard's holster. His voice rasped, low-keyed and tense: "Don't make me kill you, _ktar_! I want only freedom, not your life!"

The _kroy's_ eyes flicked down to the leveled gun. He stopped short--stiff, silent.

"Back here!" Jarl clipped. "Back in my cell...."

Wordless, dead-white face a chalky mask, the _kroy_ slithered past him.

"Take him with you!" Jarl gestured to the fallen _fala_ guard.

The _ktar_ bent. His pseudopods locked onto the dead Martian's shoulders. He dragged the corpse out of the corridor, into the cell.

Jarl swept up the wave-pencil key from where it had fallen as the _fala_ died. Tight-drawn as a Uranian _tal_-string, gun still lined on the Ganymedan's neuro-plexus, he jerked the cell door shut and slid the wave-pencil into its slot beside the lock.

* * * * *

The bolt clicked home. A fierce excitement flared within Jarl. Heart pounding, heedless of the fatigue and pain that racked him, he spun about and ran, half-reeling, down the hall.

He wondered how much time he had.

Or if he had any.

Wassreck and Sais.... He gripped the ray-gun tighter.

The first three doors he passed stood open.

The fourth was closed and locked.

Jarl slid the wave-pencil into the slot.

The bolt snapped back. Shoving open the door, he strained his eyes, searching the darkness of the room.

A thick, familiar voice snarled sleepily from a bunk.

"Ungo--!"

The great, horny shoulders heaved up. The misshapen head lurched into view. "Jarl--!" It was a half gasp, half sob. "Jarl, I thought they'd done for you--that you'd gone under--!"

Jarl reeled against the Jovian, clutching the mighty arm. "Quiet! They'll be after us any second!"

He could feel Ungo's muscles swell. "Let them--!"

Jarl laughed in spite of his tension, his pain. "Not yet, Ungo. Not till the job is done!" He pivoted. "Come on!"

The Jovian's head sank down between the bulging shoulders. His eyes gleamed. "The tube again--the way we came--?"

Jarl paused at the door. "No." He peered up and down the corridor.

"Then what--?"

"The commissioner's carrier. It's still in the court outside. We'll grab it as soon as I get back." Jarl started forward.

Ungo caught his wrist. "Jarl...."

"What--?"

"There may be something you don't know...."

Jarl came around sharply. "Speak up! Time's short!" Once more, the tension was climbing in him.

Ungo fumbled: "The guards--they talked a little. They say the reason _rey_ Gundre went all-out on this raid was for a weapon, more than Wassreck."

Jarl felt the cords along his neck draw tighter. "A weapon--?"

"Some new thing Wassreck worked out. A beam that focuses energy drawn from cosmic dust." The Jovian's voice sank lower. His head thrust forward. "Jarl, they claim it'll blast a ship right out of space, at almost any range. They've got it geared and mounted now."

Jarl braced himself against the door. It dawned on him that his palm was slick with sweat against the ray-gun's butt. The little things came back to him--the tastes, the smells, the sounds. Again he peered up and down the empty hall.

A weapon that focussed the power that lay in cosmic dust--? Even to talk of it was sheer madness!

Yet Wassreck had made madness come to life so many times....

Involuntarily, Jarl Corvett shivered.

"If it's true, they'll blast us down before we even get the carrier to our ship," said Ungo. He scrubbed his scaly hand along his hip. "We wouldn't have a chance...."

* * * * *

Jarl bit down hard. With savage effort, he forced himself to think; to shake off the bleak despair that kept rising in him, ever higher. "What chance could we have if we went back through the tube, the air-vent?"

"We could maybe hide...."

"On Vesta--?" Jarl laughed aloud. "They'd find us as easily as in our cells!" He broke off. The laughter went out of him, replaced by an urgency even more feverish than that which had gone before. "No, Ungo! It means we've got to run! We'd have to even if we could find a place to hide!"

"But why, Jarl--?" The big Jovian scowled and fumbled.

"A weapon like that, and you ask why?" Jarl cursed in harsh, bitter syllables. "What about the others--the outlaw worlds? What will it mean when the Federation fleet sweeps down on H'sana?--on Ceresta?"

It was Ungo's turn to curse. Jarl shoved the wave-pencil into his hand. "Here! Break out the men! And hurry!"

"But you--"

Jarl laughed. Of a sudden, once again, recklessness was boiling in him. "We came here on a mission!"

"Not the woman--!"

"She'll still make _rey_ Gundre hold his fire! She'll still buy Wassreck free!"

Ungo twisted. His bulk loomed rock-rigid, bigger than ever. "You can't. Jarl! I won't let you! You are sick--crazy--"

The fire of recklessness in Jarl glowed brighter. "Tell me that tomorrow, Ungo!" he clipped through clenched teeth. "You may convince me--after the commissioner's ordered his men to shoot us down with that hell-cat aboard!"

Ungo's breath came faster. "Then let me go, Jarl! Let me get her--!"

Jarl brought the ray-gun up, stone-steady. "We may both die on Vesta, Ungo. That's enough for me to have resting on my conscience."

"But Jarl--"

"I'll shoot if I have to, Ungo."

Their eyes locked, and for a long moment they stood statue-like, unmoving. Then, half-sullenly, the Jovian stepped aside. "I'll be waiting, Jarl. Whatever happens, I'll be waiting."

Jarl did not answer. Of a sudden there were no words for him to say to Ungo. Ray-gun in hand, he ran down the hall, picking his way through the maze of ramps and corridors.

He thought: _It would have been better if Wassreck had let me die on Horla._

Then, at last, he reached Ylana's room. It came to him as a shock when there was no guard.

Silently, he opened the door; stepped swiftly in, gun up and ready.

The bed, the room, were empty.

* * * * *

In a sort of frenzy, he ran through the rest of the suite; jerked open the neutron-bath and closets.

But the girl was gone.

He spun about, for a wild moment ready to race on through the rambling building, searching further.

But that was madness, and in his heart he knew it. Not even a clue as to Ylana's whereabouts had been left behind. He might hunt for hours to no avail.

And time was running short ... the seconds ticking by.

Jarl sagged back numbly. The fire went out of him. A dinning echo drummed within his brain. _I've failed ... I've failed ... I've failed...._

Wassreck had gone through Horla's holocaust for nothing. Sais would weep and turn away.

As for Ceresta.

But there was still Ungo to think of ... Ungo, and the five dauntless, swaggering raider crewmen who'd come here with him. He owed it to them at least to try to get away.

Leaden-footed, he stumbled back through the maze of halls and ramps again.

Then he was back in the corridor of the cells. Ungo lumbered up beside him, eyes alight with a lust for battle. "Jarl! We knocked us off a guard station--!"

The five crewmen crowded around--grinning wolfishly, displaying weapons.

Jarl said dully, "Ungo, she was gone."

The Jovian shrugged his massive shoulders. "It goes that way sometimes." And then: "We can't wait, Jarl. The far sky's getting grey already."

"All right."

"We've found a gate to the court...."

"Let's go, then." Woodenly, Jarl walked with them to the heavy door and peered through a crevice into the courtyard.

The personal carrier of _rey_ Gundre, high commissioner of all the asteroids, rose stark and sleek, a shining silver lance against the darkness of the sky. Blue-uniformed Federation guards patrolled in pairs or stood their posts around it, weapons dully gleaming.

The sight of the ship, the fighters, somehow lifted Jarl. Of a sudden he knew that now, of all times, he needed a foe that he could see and strike.

He clipped curt orders: "We'll come out fast and trust to shock to get us through. The first man aboard grabs the controls. The last racks shut the hatch. Blast as soon as the bell rings!"

The raiders drew close, weapons ready. Jarl cut through the bolt on the door.

"Now?" whispered Ungo.

"Now!"

* * * * *

Ungo's bulk struck the gate with a splintering crash. The raiders charged for the ship like ravening _zanths_ that race to reach their prey.

Knife ready, ray-gun ablaze, Jarl Corvett leaped forward in his crewmen's van.

Guards spun about. Desperately, the nearest tried to form to meet the rush.

Jarl drove the knife deep into a _Pervod's_ breast; blasted a _dau_ back with his ray-gun's full charge. The fierce joy of conflict leaped in him. As from afar, he heard the shouts of his men as they lunged into the fray.

The guards' ranks wavered.

But now those from beyond the carrier were rushing to their aid. Steel clashed on steel. A great bulbous-bodied Thorian hurtled down on Jarl. Its tentacles wrapped round him, crushing him.

Savagely, he slashed at the leathery body; blasted with the ray-gun, straight into the repulsive face.

The Thorian's tentacles fell away. Jarl glimpsed Big Ungo, smashed down a _dau_ with a blow of his one mighty arm. There was a smell of blood and burnt flesh; wild screams of rage and fear and anguish.

"To the ship--!" Jarl shouted. He hacked his way up the blood-slippery ramp; clutched Ungo's belt and half-dragged the Jovian aboard.

The last of the raiders scrambled in behind them. The hatch clanged shut. The ready bell leaped to jangling life.

There was a sudden roar of auxiliary gravicomps. The gyro-indicators jiggled and swayed in their mountings. Men lurched awkwardly, caught momentarily off balance in the crushing force of too-fast acceleration.

Then stability returned. The carrier speared upward, out from Vesta, into the spark-spangled, glittering murk of the boundless astroidal night.

Jarl turned, seeking out the crewmen, and a sudden sickness gripped him. There were only three now: three and Big Ungo.

But the dead were dead, and they had gone as raiders go. Bleakly, he made his way to the viziscreen and turned it on. Spinning the dials, he drew a cross on the specific black emptiness where his ship had been scheduled to pick them up. His fingers shook a little, and his earlier, darker mood came back to nag him. _We're overdue, a day behind already. What if they've given us up and gone? What if a fleet patrol has flushed them out?_

Grimly, he calculated the carrier's chances of making Ceres on her own ... such slim, slim chances....

Only then, as he manipulated the dials, a great, shark-like bulk loomed on the viziscreen. At his elbow, Ungo thrust out a quivering talon and cried, "It's her, Jarl! The _Ghost_! She's still waiting!"

Stiff-fingered, Jarl adjusted the focus. The familiar outlines of the raider ship sharpened. Silent, space-drive off, she drifted shadow-like through the asteroids like some strange, cylindrical metal world.

* * * * *

Jarl let out his breath, all at once acutely conscious of the strain that frayed at him. He was suddenly tottering weak, his belly sick and twisting.

Still beside him, Ungo studied him with worried eyes. "Look, Jarl: You're done. Lay down before you fall down."

Jarl braced his arm against the cabinet of the viziscreen. "How can I rest?" he mumbled, and knew himself that he was mumbling. "Even if we make it, what happens to the raider fleet--and to Ceresta? This new weapon...."

"Can you help more if you're dead?" the Jovian badgered. "Will things be better if you fall over?" He gripped Jarl's arm. "Come on! I'm putting you to bed, whether you want to go or not!"

Numbly, Jarl let himself be led into the commissioner's own tiny private cabin. Wordless, he sagged onto the bunk.

Ungo backed out again and closed the door.

Flat on his back in the pulsing stillness, Jarl closed his eyes.

But sleep would not come. His brain was a screen, alive with a vivid, ever-shifting kaleidoscope of form and color. Again and again, his mind flicked back to Sais and Wassreck ... to the raider fleet, the wild rovers and fighting men he knew so well ... to Ceresta's teeming streets, and the cold, bleak beauty of the hills and plains of Pallas.

And to Ylana.

Shifting, he opened his eyes and stared up at the dully gleaming ceiling.

Where had the girl gone? Why had she not been in her room?

Above all, what strange lust had led her to flay him as she had, before the highest officers of her father's fleet?

Jarl frowned and rubbed his aching forehead. The girl's willingness to bring down upon herself the shame of beating a shackled prisoner was a hard thing to explain.

Could it be that she indeed had alien blood--a strain from some sadistic barbarian breed? Narrow-eyed, he tried to recall her face more clearly ... the shadow that hung over her slim blonde loveliness. Or--he frowned again--perhaps that shadow truly hid a secret--the secret of a twisted mind set in beauty's body, irrevocably warping over into madness.

He moved to a more comfortable position, still staring up at the blank inscrutability of the metal ceiling. A play of light and shadow caught his eye. Idly, he followed its shiftings--first slow, then suddenly abrupt, then slow again.

Little by little, an uneasiness crept over him. New tension began to crawl in his midriff.

He loosened his belt and pulled the wrinkles from his tunic; moved from side to side.

But the uneasiness grew. He could not make it go away.

Biting his lip, he lay back, still searching for the cause.

Overhead, the shadows on the ceiling slowly began to shift again.

It came to him, then: He was lying motionless, allegedly alone in this cramped room--_yet the shadows were moving_!

There could be only one answer: Someone else shared these quarters with him.

* * * * *

The hair on the back of his neck crawled. Grimly, he wondered what the odds on his life would be if it turned out that some _Pervod_ guard had been trapped here when the carrier took off.

Twisting in the bed, he let his hand fall across the haft of his knife.

The shadows overhead flexed a fraction.

Ever so slowly, ever so carefully, he turned his head, looking sidewise down at the floor.

A heel was drawing out of sight beneath the bunk.

Jarl gripped the knife. Silently, he twisted still further, till he was in position to strike.

Only then did he speak--coldly, with all the menace he could muster: "Come out--or I'll kill you!"

The whisper of a quick-drawn breath broke through the stillness, then died again in utter silence.

Jarl poised; drew back his knife. "All right, then, curse you--!"

Clothing rustled. A voice choked, "Wait, Jarl Corvett--! I'm coming...."

A strangely familiar voice....

Again there was the rustling. A head moved into view from beneath the bunk, already turning ... a woman's head, crowned with a nimbus of golden hair.

It was Ylana.