There was a muffled whimper of protest, of denial.
“When you are ungagged,” said a man, “you will speak instantly, clearly and truthfully.”
“Get the gag out of her mouth,” said the authoritative voice.
“Master, what are we to do?” whispered Janina.
The gloved hand of the gladiator reached out, groping, for the fire pistol, and then he had it, again, in his hand.
“I am Gerune, princess of the Drisriaks, sister of Ortog!” cried the princess above, in misery, and pain.
“Hear the slave!” laughed a man.
“The commander of the Gelstane is Surogastes, the subcaptain of the Borsa is Tethgutha, the commander of the Vorgaard is Bradow, son of Astarax! Bring me clothing, now!”
“Bring sheets,” said a man.
“Cover her,” said another voice, startled.
“Hurry the princess away,” said a man, frightened.
“Fools, fools, fools!” wept the princess.
“Sever her bonds! Carry her from this place!” said the authoritative voice.
The gladiator had now crawled to the foot of the shaft, and lifted the fire pistol. With one bolt he melted the ladder from the top of the shaft.
“Who are these others?” asked a man.
One of the men above leaped to the foot of the shaft, but there, for a moment, lost his footing, and then took the charge of the gladiator full in the chest of the armor, which blasted him back against the side of the shaft, and he sank down there, unconscious. Another man followed, but the gladiator, shaking his head, steadying the fire pistol with both hands, struck him full in the belly. A shot ripped above his own head. The gladiator, pulled the trigger again. The fellow spun about and then, drunkenly, seized the ladder and began to climb, but, in a moment, he had come to the melted termination of the ladder, feet from the top, and could go no further. He clung to the ladder, and then, struck by a third charge from the pistol, was thrust from it, and then, in a moment, fell sideways, and then down, clattering to the bottom of the shaft.
“Bring gas,” said a voice from above.
“We are lost, Master,” said Janina. “There is no escape!”
The gladiator stood unsteadily, parts of his armor dangling, and drew a bead with the pistol on the door, across the way, that giving the main entry to Section 19. He fired once into the side of the door, sealing it to the steel portal.
Running feet could now be heard again, above, more men approaching.
There was blood running down the side of the gladiator’s leg, on the plating, from beneath the armoring of his torso.
He slipped down on one knee.
“She lied,” he said.
Across the way he could see, through the observation panel, the faces of men. He heard the door being tried.
“Get in the escape capsule,” said the gladiator, from one knee, to Janina.
But she fled to him. She put her arms about him. “Master is mad!” she wept. “He is mad with confusion and pain!”
He struggled to raise his head.
“There is no lock here, Master!” she said.
“Go,” he said.
“Let Janina rather die in his arms!”
Then his head was raised, and he looked upon the slave, and his visage was fierce and terrible.
“Janina hastens to obey!” cried the girl with fear and she fled to the inactivated capsule, the second of the two which had been in the hold.
She struggled only for a moment with the hatch, as it had been opened before, by the fugitives. They had been sustaining themselves on the supplies in the capsules.
Across the way the butt of fire pistols smote at the wire-reinforced glass, and then the muzzle of a pistol, poking through the wire, bits of glass, clinging to it, intruded into the hold. It fired over the escape capsule, rippling the wall of the hold.
“Masks!” called a man, from above.
The gladiator fired a shot toward the observation panel and glass and wire spattered backwards, into the corridor outside.
Gas began to hiss downward into the hold, through the lift shaft.
It could be seen now, like fog, creeping from the shaft.
Across the way the door was being struck with charges like hammers. The door began to glow.
The gladiator rose unsteadily to his feet.
The door now seemed lost in a blaze of sparks and charges.
The gladiator staggered toward the escape capsule.
He climbed the two iron steps, leading to the hatch of the capsule, and then leaned against the capsule, weakly, over it.
“She lied!” he cried, suddenly, and wept, and struck down on the capsule with an armored fist. “She lied!” he cried.
“Master!” cried Janina, from within the capsule. “Master!”
Gas was now billowing from the lift shaft into the hold.
The gladiator unslung the Telnarian rifle from his back.
Across the way the door suddenly burst loose from the steel portal.
He slipped into the opened hatch, but stood in it, his body half out of the capsule.
Janina, within, crouched on the steel plating.
Men, masked, weapons raised, emerged through the portal across the way.
The gladiator heard two men leaping to the floor of the lift shaft.
He aimed the Telnarian rifle at the side of the hold.
He pulled the trigger four times, placing four charges in the form of a square.
Some of the gas began to move suddenly, hissing, toward the wall. The gladiator laid the rifle on the surface of the capsule before him, and then, with the pistol, with its last charges, each set on the narrow sustaining beam, linked the four points of impact of the rifle.
The gas was now whipping toward the wall. The atmosphere in the hold was rushing past him, tearing at his hair.
“No!” cried someone behind him.
Then men were fleeing.
The gladiator lifted, once more, the Telnarian rifle. He fired the last charge in the rifle at the center of the pattern. Suddenly the side of the hull seemed to leap away from him and, the capsule tumbling on its side toward the hole, he slid within it, turned the wheel, and secured the hatch.
In a moment the capsule was tumbling through space, leaving the Alaria, and the Ortung fleet behind, like specks in the night.
CHAPTER 15
“What are those sounds?” asked Janina, frightened.
“They are horns, hunting horns,” said the gladiator.
“This world, then, is not uninhabited,” said Janina.
“It would seem not,” said the gladiator.
He kicked dirt over the small fire they had built on the bank.
“My clothes are not yet dry!” protested Janina.
“Put them on wet, or carry them,” said the gladiator.
“I am exhausted,” she said. “We almost died. I cannot move.”
She looked up at him, pathetically. She knelt on leaves. Her hair had been loosened, that it might be dried near the fire.
“Then I shall rope you to a tree and leave you behind,” he said.
She rose to her feet and hastily began to gather her clothes from the cord stretched between two trees.
“Forgive your slave,” she said.
The gladiator stood very still, listening.
“What world is this?” she asked, rolling the garments of Princess Gerune into a small bundle.
“I do not know,” he said, softly.
“Forgive me, Master,” she said, realizing she might have disturbed him.
The gladiator looked up at the sky. The descent of the capsule, last night, might have been visible, particularly in the upper atmosphere. It might have been mistaken for a meteor at first, a falling star, perhaps even later, when the fearful rush in the atmosphere, like a hurricane over the trees, was audible. But, too, there may have been a visual contact, when the descent slowed and the capsule began to skim the trees, the sensors searching for level surfaces, where the adjusting thrusters would be activated for a landing. But then, too, perhaps not. How could one know?