t away, Chief!" Sand
panted. "You and Steve Brent both."

"All right. Get Steve," Gerry growled. He sighed, and tightened his
belt, and went wearily down the steps to the lower floor of the tower.

* * * * *

The pleasant walled garden behind the tower was a very different place
from the stop Gerry had seen when he first came to Savissa. The
explosive bullets of the Scaly Ones had ripped up many of the trees, and
shattered the marble statues. A heap of debris fallen from above lay
along the base of the tower wall, while more was constantly trickling
down as the murky beams of the supode rays criss-crossed overhead. The
bodies of dead Amazons were scattered here and there on the trampled
grass. Dense clouds of acrid smoke from the burning city swirled down
over the garden wall.

Closana was waiting in the garden, her armor dim and battered. Her left
arm was heavily bandaged, but she still carried a naked sword in her
right hand.

"I was told that you wanted me," she said. Gerry shook his head.

"No, it was your father who sent for _me_." Just then Steve and Chester
Sand came across the garden. A faint suspicion began to stir in Gerry's
mind.

"Where is Rupin-Sang?" he demanded.

Sand hesitated, and cleared his throat. His eyes were shifty. Then Gerry
heard a slight sound behind him. He spun around--and looked squarely
into the muzzle of a ray-tube held by Lansa himself!

They had been neatly trapped! Lansa and a dozen of his men had come up
through the sewers and slain the Amazon guards posted there.

"Drop your weapons!" Lansa snapped. Gerry shrugged and obeyed, and the
others followed his example. There was a triumphant smile on the
renegade's saturnine face. "I am glad you were not killed in the
fighting, Norton," he said, "because you and Brent and the girl will
make very valuable hostages for me when your space-ship eventually
returns."

Gerry turned and stared at Chester Sand. The _Viking's_ Safety Officer
was pale, but he met the other man's glance with a sort of weak
defiance. Gerry's lip curled.

"So _you_ are the rat who slugged me that time I caught Olga in the
radio room!" he said. "I should have known it. I seem to have left
several loose ends I should have watched, but I'll fix you for this some
day and...."

"You won't be fixing anybody any more, Norton," Lansa said grimly.
"After I've used you to get possession of the _Viking_ you'll die in the
torture cham