I heard a sound and, releasing the girl, lifted the weapon, with both hands.
A figure, in black, stood up, high, atop several boxes. "It is not here," he said.
"Drusus," I said. I recalled him, he of the Assassins, whom I had bested on the sand of the small arena.
He carried a dart-firing weapon.
"Put aside your weapon, slowly," I commanded him.
"It is not here," he said. "I have searched."
"Put aside your weapon," I said.
He put it at his feet.
"What are you doing here?" I asked.
"I suspect the same as you," he said. "I have searched for the lever or key, or wheel, or whatever it may be, which, manipulated or turned, will destroy this place."
"You serve Kurii," I said.
"No longer," said he. "I fought, and was spared by one who was a man. I have thought long on this. Though I may be too weak to be an Assassin, yet perhaps I have strength sufficient unto manhood."
"How do I know you speak the truth?" I said.
"Four Kur were here," he said, "to guard this place, to intercept him who might attempt to attain it. Those I slew."
He gestured to an aisle in the boxes. I could smell Kur blood. I did not take my eyes from him. The girl, turning about, shrank suddenly back, desperately, futilely, trying to free her small bands, tied behind her back, and stilled a scream.
"Four times I fired, four I slew," he said.
"Report what you see," I told the girl.
"There are four beasts, or parts of beasts," she said, "three here, and one beyond."
"Take up your weapon," I said to Drusus.
He picked it up. He looked at the woman. "A pretty slave girl," he said.
"I am not a slave girl!" she said. "I am a free woman! I am the Lady Graciela Consuelo Rosa Rivera-Sanchez!"
"Amusing," he said. He descended from the boxes.
"I had thought the destructive device, if it exists, would be here," I said.
"I thought so, too," he said.
"If you trip or trigger the device," said the girl, "we will all be killed!"
'The invasion must be stopped," I said.
"The device must not be detonated," she cried. "We would all be killed, you fools!"
I struck her back against the boxes, blood at her mouth, and she sank to the floor.
"You think and act as a slave," I said.
She put her head down, trembling, frightened, an instinctive gesture for a slave.
"You are a slave," I said. "I can tell."
She looked up at me, frightened.
"Perhaps it would be well for you to ask permission before you speak in the presence of free men," I said.
She put her head down.
"She would look well naked, on an auction block," said Drusus.
"Yes," I said.
"What shall we do now?" he asked.
At that moment the large steel door, through which I had entered the room shut. It must have been done automatically. We saw no one. The wheel on our side of the door, bummed and spun, locking the door. At the same time, from the ceiling, a filtering of white, smoky gas began to descend.
"Hold your breath!" I cried. I leveled the, dart-firing weapon I carried at the door, and pressed the firing switch. The dart, like an insidious bird, sped to the steel, smoking, and pierced its outer layer. An instant later, as I flung myself downward, near the girl, Drusus with me, there was a ripping of steel which tore at my eardrums. I gestured the others to their feet, and, together, we ran through the smoke and gas to the door. It lay twisted, half wrenched from its hinges, half melted. We lowered our heads and slipped through the opening. The girl screamed as the hot metal brushed her calf. We were then free in the hall. Some eight Kurii were hurrying toward us.
Drusus lifted his weapon, calmly. A dart hissed forth. The first Kur stopped and then, suddenly, burst apart. Another reeled away from him. Another tore the blood and flesh from his face, half blinded, roaring with fury. A dart hissed above our heads and rent in its explosion the metal behind us. I fired a dart and another Kur spun about hideously, scratching at the metal, and then, before our eyes, erupted as though it had engorged a bomb. The six Kurii remaining, one with an arm dragging on the floor, hung to its body by torn shreds of muscle, scrambled backwards, snarling. Then they disappeared about a corner.
"Hurry!" I cried.
We sped forward, and, at the first branching in the corridor, turned left.
We had no desire to again encounter the Kurii.
Scarcely had we left our original corridor than we heard a great slam of steel. Looking backward we saw that it had been sealed.
"Let us move quickly," I suggested.
We hurried up a flight of stairs.
We saw no one.
We began to ascend another flight of stairs. Near its top the girl stumbled and fell, bound, rolling, down several steps. She was bruised and sobbing.
I took her in my arms.
"Did you see the beasts!" she cried. "What are they?"
"They are those whom you served," I informed her.
"No!" she cried.
"But you will now serve others, pretty slave," I told her.
She looked at me with horror.
I threw her over my shoulder and ascended the stairs.
"Who goes there!" cried a man. Then he spun away from us, rolling and spattering backward.
"The way is now clear," said Drusus. "Let us hurry."
Another steel panel slammed down behind us. The siren then began to whine in the steel halls.
"Perhaps there was no destructive device," said Drusus.
"I know where it is now," I said. "We have been fools! Fools!"
"Where?" he asked, puzzled.
"Beyond the reach of slaves, beyond the scope of the monitoring devices," I cried. "Where no one may reach, where no one may see!"
"We have journeyed already to the termination of the slave track," he said.
"Where do all the slave tracks terminate?" I asked.
"All?" he asked.
"Yes," I said.
"In the center of the complex," he said.
"At the chamber of Zarendargar," I said.
"Yes," he said.
"I have seen that chamber," I said. "It contains monitors, but it itself is not monitored."
"Yes," he said. "Yes!"
"Where but in the chamber of the high Kur would lie that terrifying mechanism?"
"Where no one may reach, where no one may see," he said.
"Saving Zarendargar, Half-Ear, himself," I said.
"Yes," he said.
"We have failed," said Drusus.
I nodded in agreement. The strange common project of two men, of diverse and antagonistic, yet strangely similar castes, an Assassin and a Warrior, had failed.
"What is now to be done?" he asked.
"We must attempt to reach the chamber of Zarendargar," I said.
"It is hopeless," he said.
"Of course," I said. "But I must attempt it. Are you with me?"
"Of course," he said.
"But you are of the Assassins," I said.
"We are tenacious fellows," he smiled.
"I have heard that," I said.
"Do you think that only Warriors are men?" he asked.
"No," I said. "I have never been of that opinion."
"Let us proceed," he said.
"I thought you were too weak to be an Assassin," I said.
"I was once strong enough to defy the dictates of my caste," he said. "I was once strong enough to spare my friend, though I feared that in doing this I would myself be killed."
"Perhaps you are the strongest of the dark caste," I said.
He shrugged.
"Let us see who can fight better," I said.
"Our training is superior to yours," he said.
"I doubt that," I said. "But we do not get much training dropping poison into people's drinks."
"Assassins are not permitted poison," he said proudly.