I looked about, and, suddenly, saw that the port to the complex was being slowly closed. Swiftly I re-entered. The Lady Rosa, startled, turned toward me, from the wheel which controlled the panel. She backed away, shaking her head. Her mouth had been on the wheel.
Not speaking I went to her and put her to her knees. With my knife I cut a length of her hair, about a foot in length, and crossed and tied together her ankles. I then dragged her by the arm across the steel, out through the portal, and onto the ice. "No," she screamed, "No!" I left her on her side on the ice. "No!" she screamed.
I returned within the complex and, with the wheel, closed the heavy, sliding hatch.
I heard her screaming on the other side of the steel. "Let me in!" she cried. "I demand to be let in!" Her cries could be heard with some clarity. She had doubtless twisted and squirmed frenziedly, until she must be, on her knees, just outside of the steel.
"I am a free woman!" she cried. "You cannot do this to me!"
I did not think she would last long outside in the arctic night, silked as she was.
She had tried to kill me.
"I will be your slave," she cried.
She did not know if I were still on the other side of the door or not.
"I am your slave!" she cried. "Master, Master, I am your slave! Please spare your slave, Master!" She wailed with misery and cold. "Please spare your slave, Master!" she wept.
I turned the wheel, opening the hatch.
She fell inward, across the threshold, shivering. I drew her within the room, and spun shut the hatch.
I looked down at her, shuddering at my feet. She looked up at me, terrorized. "What manner of man are you, my Master?" she asked. I looked down at her. She struggled to her knees and put her head down, to my feet. She began to kiss them, desperately, in an effort to placate me. "Look up," I said to her. She did so. "You will be whipped severely," I told her. "Yes, Master," she said. "I tried to kill you."
"You did that when you were a free woman," I told her. "I discount it."
"But then why would you have me whipped?" she asked.
"You kiss poorly," I told her.
"I beg instruction," she said.
"I will have a girl try to teach you some things," I told her. Experienced slave girls are often useful in teaching a new girl, fresh to her condition, how to please men.
"I will try to learn my lessons well," she said.
I threw her to my shoulder, to carry her within the complex to a holding area. "You will learn your lessons well," I told her, "or you. will be thrown to sleen for feed."
"Yes, Master," she said.
"The complex is secure," said Ram, "save for the chamber of Zarendargar, Half-Ear. None has entered there."
"I shall go in," I said.
"We can blast our way in," said Ram. "Let us do that," said Drusus.
I walked down the long hail toward the chamber of Zarendargar. Behind me, some hundred yards or so, were Ram, and Drusus, and Karjuk and Imnak, and numerous red hunters.
I carried a dart-firing weapon in my hand. It seemed a long way down the hall. I had not remembered it as being that far. The overhead track system stopped some forty feet or so from Zarendargar's chamber. I looked at the monitor lens in the ceiling. Doubtless my approach had been observed on it. The interior of the chamber, though it contained monitors, was not itself monitored.
At the door to Zareridargar's chamber I paused, and lifted the dart-firing weapon. But the door seemed ajar.
The fighting in the complex had been sharp and bloody. Men of the complex, and red hunters, had fallen. The resistance had been led by the giant Kur, whose left ear had been half torn away. But there had been too many red hunters, and too many weapons. He had, when the battle had turned against him, freed his Kurii and his men to flee or surrender as they would. No Kur had surrendered. Most had been slain, fighting to the last. Some had departed from the complex, hobbling wounded away into the arctic night. Zarendargar himself had withdrawn to his chamber.
The door there seemed ajar.
I thrust it open with the barrel of the dart-firing weapon.
I recalled the chamber well.
I slipped inside, furtively, but then lowered the weapon.
"Greetings, Tarl Cabot," came from the translator.
On the furred dais, as before, I saw Zarendargar. There was a small device near him.
The great shape, stiffly, uncurled, and sat there, watching me.
"Forgive me, my friend," it said. "I have lost a great deal of blood."
"Let us dress your wounds," I said.
"Have some paga," it said. It indicated the bottles and glasses to one side.
I went to the shelves and, looping the dart-firing weapon over my shoulder, by its stock strap, poured two glasses of paga. I gave one of the glasses to Zarendargar, who accepted it, and retained the other. I went to sit, cross-legged, before the dais, but Zarendargar indicated that I should share the dais with him. I sat near him, cross-legged, as a Warrior sits.
"You are my prisoner," I said to him.
"I think not," he said. He indicated, holding it, the small metallic device which had lain beside him on the dais. It nestled now within his left, tentacled paw.
"I see," I said. The hair rose on the back of my neck.
"Let us drink to your victory," he said. He lifted his glass. "A victory to men and Priest-Kings."
"You are generous," I said.
"But a victory is not a war," he said.
"True," I said.
We touched glasses, in the manner of men, and drank.
He put aside his glass. He lifted the metallic object.
I tensed.
"I can move this switch," he said, "before you can fire."
"That is clear to me," I said. "You are bleeding," I said. The dais on which I sat was stiff with dried blood. And it was clear that so small an effort as rising to meet me, and touching his glass to mine, had opened one of the vicious wounds on his great body.
He lifted the metallic object.
"It is this which you sought," he said.
"Of course," I said. It was that object which lay beyond the reach of men, and where it could not be scanned by the monitoring system.
"Did you know it would be here?" he asked.
"I understood that it would be here only later," I said.
"You will not take me alive," it said.
"Surrender," I said. "It is no dishonor to surrender. You have fought well, but lost."
"I am Half-Ear, of the Kurii," it said.
It fondled the metal device, looking at me.
"Is there so much of value here," I asked, "that you would be willing to destroy it?"
"The supplies here, and the disposition maps, the schedules and codes, will not fall into the hands of Priest-Kings," it said. It looked at me. "There are two switches on this mechanism," it said. It lifted the mechanism.
There were indeed two switches on the mechanism.
"When I depress either switch," it said, not taking its eyes from me, "a twofold, irreversible sequence is initiated. First, a signal is transmitted from the complex to the steel worlds. This signal, which can also be received by the probe ships and the fleet, will inform them of the destruction of the complex, the loss of these munitions and supplies."
"The second portion of the sequence, simultaneously initiated, triggers the destruction of the complex," I said.
"Of course," he said.
His finger rested over the switch.
"There are several humans left in the complex," I said.
"No Kurii save myself," he said.
"True," I said. "But there are humans here,"
"Free," he asked.
"Some are free," I said.
He shrugged. The great furry shoulders then hunched in pain.
I could smell blood.