us."

I grunted. I did not see how they expected one lone woman, however
fantastically gifted with wits and know-how, to overcome the ships,
armament and organization of the Jivros, even with Wananda working to
neutralize their power.

"She must be a wizard; you expect such wonders of her!"

"There will be a ship waiting to pick her up as soon as she is out of
sight of the Jivros who will accompany us. I have sent it already. It
waits in the hills by the barrier. With you along, you can contact the
remaining Zervs. They will augment your power. I can send more ships
manned with my men, later. We have been preparing for this a long time."

"Aren't you doing a lot of talking? Walls have ears, you know, and those
Jivros of yours look pretty shifty to me."

"It is the hour of their sleep. They are creatures of regularity, like
ants, you know. They live by routine. There are only guards awake. I
know exactly where every one of them stands at this moment, where every
one of them sleeps. I have not been inactive."

* * *

We filed out of the city gate, a party of nearly fifty, a score of them
bearers of a big palanquin-like vehicle in which they proposed to carry
the Croen's inert body.

I was remembering the brief examination of her that I had made when I
entered the cavern of the golden statue.

A four-armed female of near-human aspect, but with a single horn on her
forehead. A member of a race from distant space, alien even to these
visitors to earth. She had been utterly different from anything I had
even imagined as human--yet somewhere, somehow the origin of that race
had been similar to our own. I wondered if space was peopled with such
near-human races, all descendant from some ancient space-traveling race
who had colonized--then passed on into forgotten time?

The party wound on, taking that same trail by which I had entered the
cavern with Hank and Jake and Frans. Silently I blessed the fate that
had spared me the things that had been done to them. Their only
release, I imagined, could be death.

Overhead the rocky walls began to close, the light grew dim, ahead came
that eerie glow from the magnetic statue. The prince's eyes caught mine
in a swift, silent order to be ready, and the two of us drew ahead of
the column. In my jacket pocket I held the hypodermic, one of Schree
design, different from a modern medical hypodermic only in that it was
decorated with incut figures of glorified