ho are you?" she asked in Martian.

* * * * *

Gerry stared at her in startled surprise. The girl had unquestionably
spoken in Martian. It was a very old and antique form of the language
that she used, a dialect that had not been heard on Mars itself for
countless generations, but it was possible for Gerry to understand it.
The last thing he had expected to find on this planet of Venus was
anyone who spoke one of the tongues common on the Outer Planets!

"I'm Gerry Norton," he said.

"Geree!" the girl repeated. "You talk funny."

"Same to you, sister," Gerry grinned. "And just who are you, anyway?"

"I am Closana, of course, the daughter of Rupin-Sang!" the girl said
haughtily. "Don't you see the Golden Arrow?"

She touched a small golden arrow that hung from a light chain about her
neck. It seemed to be some kind of an insignia of rank. Her deep blue
eyes were looking at him thoughtfully.

"You wear queer clothes, Geree," she said at last. "Where do you come
from?"

"From Earth."

She frowned.

"Where is that? Is it one of the lands beyond the Great Sea?"

"Much farther away than that. It's another planet, far off in outer
space."

"You lie," she said. "Such a thing is not possible."

"Okay, sister," Gerry snapped, "we won't argue about that right now.
Who were your unpleasant friends here? What do we do next?"

Closana walked across to take the sword of one of the slain Reptilians.
She tested its balance, seemed satisfied, and then belted the scabbard
about her own waist. She handled the long blade with the experienced
ease of a warrior, and for the first time Gerry noticed the play of
corded muscles beneath the smooth and tawny skin of her arms and
shoulders. Closana, daughter of Rupin-Sang, was feminine enough but
there was nothing of the clinging vine about her! She threw her long
hair back over her shoulders and faced Gerry with the sword in her hand.

"You should have killed the last of the Scaly Ones," she said, "instead
of letting him get away. Now he will bring the whole raiding party down
on us."

"Who are they, those things you call the Scaly Ones?"

"Their region lies beyond the frontier of our land of Savissa," the girl
explained. "We are near the boundaries now. There is constant warfare
between ourselves and the Scaly Ones. Now and then their raiding parties
break through our ring of barrier forts, and it was a group of five
hundred such raiders that