Jivros, carved in the
crystalline cylinder, and the metal was of gold.

There were only two of the repellent insect-men with us. I surmised they
were there only as observers, but that was not the case. They were there
because they had to be. I could see an unusual agitation on their blank,
bulge-eyed faces, if those insect masks could be called faces. They were
afraid of this Croen female, even in her inert condition.

The tall, graceful Schree warriors followed us into the cavern, and last
of all came the two hopping Jivros. The intense attraction of the statue
drew me, but I remembered how I had avoided it before, and kept my eyes
averted. Like light on a moth's eyes, the power of it seemed to strike
into the will only when the eyes were upon it.

We gathered around the column of crystal. The Schrees attached a loop of
rope to the top, pulled it carefully from the base. When it was
stretched out horizontal upon the floor, the two Jivros set to work with
little spinning metal disk-saws, cutting a line entirely around it
lengthwise. Then they tapped it with small hammers, and the cut cracked
through. Lifting off the top section like the lid of a sarcophagus, the
Croen lay exposed to the light of day.

I stood entranced by the exquisite beauty and majesty of the naked
creature until Prince Genner nudged me with an elbow. Even as he did so,
he whirled, pointed, cried out:

"There, through that doorway, one of the traitorous Zervs spies upon us.
Catch him, my warriors, before they bring the others down upon us!"

As if drilled or awaiting this order, the tall Schrees set off as one
man, running through the same doorway by which I had followed the angry
Nokomee.

The prince and I were left alone with the two Jivros, who stood beside
the nude figure of the alien Croen. They eyed us, their eyes jerking
nervously from our faces to the body of the Croen. Quite calmly the
Prince tugged a vibro-gun, very like the weapon Holaf had worn at his
waist, from his belt and trained it upon the two horrors.

"This day will come for all the Jivros," cried the prince in a
triumphant voice, and shot a terrible blue bolt of force into the body
of each of them. The second had snapped a little weapon from his breast,
hidden in the folds of his white robe, and as he fell, the beam of it
cut a long smoking channel in the floor rock. The prince calmly picked
it up, pressed the trigger lever, handed the thing to me. I pocketed it,
then st