There was a crude barrel-lock beyond. Campbell ran his tongue once over dry lips, shrugged, and climbed in.
He got through into a space that was black as the Coalsack. The air was thin and bitingly cold. Campbell shivered in his silk shirt. He laid his hand on his gun butt and took two cautious steps away from the bulge of the lock, wishing to hell he were some place else.
Cold green light exploded out of nowhere behind him. He half turned, his gun blurring into his palm. But he had no chance to fire it.
Something whipped down across the nerve-center in the side of his neck. His body simply faded out of existence. He fell on his face and lay there, struggling with all his might to move and achieving only a faint twitching of the muscles.
He knew vaguely that someone rolled him over. He blinked up into the green light, and heard a man's deep, soft voice say from the darkness behind it:
"What made you think you could get away with it?"
Campbell tried three times before he could speak. "With what?"
"Spying. Does Tredrick think we're children?"
"I wouldn't know." It was easier to speak this time. His body was beginning to fade in again, like something on a television screen. He tried to close his hand. It didn't work very well, but it didn't matter. His gun was gone.
Something moved across the light. A man's body, a huge, supple, muscular thing the color of dark bronze. It knelt with a terrible tigerish ease beside Campbell, the bosses on its leather kilt making a clinking noise. There was a jeweled gorget of reddish metal around the base of its throat. The stones had a wicked glitter.
The deep, soft voice said, "Who are you?"
Campbell tried to force the returning life faster through his body. The man's face was in shadow. Campbell looked up with sultry, furious eyes and achieved a definite motion toward getting up.
The kneeling giant put out his right arm. The green light burned on it. Campbell's eyes followed it down toward his throat. His face became a harsh, irregular mask cut from dark wood.
The arm was heavily, beautifully muscled. But where the hand should have been there was a leather harness and a hook of polished Martian bronze.
* * * * *
Campbell knew what had struck him. The thin, hard curve of that hook, more potent than the edge of any hand.
The point pricked his throat, just over the pulse on the left side. The man said softly:
"Lie still, little man, and answer."
Campbell lay still. There was nothing else to do. He said, "I'm Thomas Black, if that helps. Who are you?"
"What did Tredrick tell you to do?"
"To get the hell out. What gives with you?" If that Taxil was spreading the word about him, he'd better hurry. Campbell decided to take a chance. The guy with the hook didn't seem to love Tredrick.
"The black boy in the radio room told me to come aboard and wait. Seems he's sore at Tredrick, too. So am I. That makes us all pals, doesn't it?"
"You lie, little man." The deep voice was quietly certain. "You were sent to spy. Answer!"
The point of the hook put the exclamation point on that word. Campbell winced away. He wished the lug wouldn't call him "little man." He wouldn't remember ever having felt more hopelessly scared.
He said, "Damn your eyes, I'm not lying. Check with the Taxil. He'll tell you."
"And betray him to Tredrick? You're clumsy, little man."
The hook bit deeper. Campbell's neck began to bleed. He felt all right again otherwise. He wondered whether he'd have a chance of kicking the man in the stomach before his throat was torn out. He tried to draw farther away, but the pipe wall wouldn't give.
A woman's voice spoke then, quite suddenly, from beyond the green light. Campbell jumped. He hadn't even thought about anyone else being there. Now it was obvious that someone was holding the light.
The voice said, "Wait, Marah. Zard is calling me now."
It was a clear, low voice. It had music in it. Campbell would have loved it if it had croaked, but as it was it made his nerves prick with sheer ecstasy.
The hook lifted out of the hole it had made, but it didn't go away. Campbell raised his head a little. The lower edge of the green light spilled across a pair of sandalled feet. The bare white legs above them were as beautiful as the voice, in the same strong clear way.
There was a long silence. Marah, the man with the hook, turned his face partly into the light. It was oblong and scarred and hard as beaten bronze. The eyes in it were smoky ember, set aslant under a tumbled crest of tawny hair.
After a long time the woman spoke again. Her voice was different this time. It was angry, and the anger made it sing and throb like the Kraylen's drum.
"The Earthman is telling the truth, Marah. Zard sent him. He's here about the Kraylens."
The big man—a Martian Drylander, Campbell thought, from somewhere around Kesh—got up, fast. "The Kraylens!"
"He asked for help, and Tredrick sent him away." The light moved closer. "But that's not all, Marah. Tredrick has found out about—us. Old Ekla talked. They're waiting for us at the ship!"
III
Marah turned. His eyes had a greenish, feral glint like those of a lion on the kill. He said, "I'm sorry, little man."
Campbell was on his feet, now, and reasonably steady. "Think nothing of it," he said dourly. "A natural mistake." He looked at the hook and mopped the blood from his neck, and felt sick. He added, "The name's Black. Thomas Black."
"It wouldn't be Campbell?" asked the woman's voice. "Roy Campbell?"
He squinted into the light, not saying anything. The woman said, "You are Roy Campbell. The Spaceguard was here not long ago, hunting for you. They left your picture."
He shrugged. "All right. I'm Roy Campbell."
"That," said Marah softly, "helps a lot!" He could have meant it any way. His hook made a small, savage flash in the green light.
"There's trouble here on Romany. Civil war. Men are going to be killed before it's over—perhaps now. Where's your place in it?"
"How do I know? The Coalition is moving in on the Kraylens. I owe them something. So I came here for help. Help! Yeah."
"You'll get it," said the woman. "You'll get it, somehow, if any of us live."
Campbell raised his dark brows. "What goes on here, anyhow?"
The woman's low voice sang and throbbed against the pipe walls. "A long time ago there were a few ships. Old ships, crowded with people who had no homes. Little, drifting people who made a living selling their odd handicrafts in the spaceports,
