But now—”
“What brought you here?”
“Don’t you know?”
The gaunt man peered at him.
“Well, they say something happened to all the Legion bases.
I met a man who saw the end of Fort Votanga.
The batteries began to fire—and stopped.
A red light shone down on the walls—and they crumbled away.
There was only a great pit left.”
The weary man shrugged vaguely.
“I don’t know what that was.
But a green thing began growing in the sky.
It was a comet, men said.
And Pluto was being dragged inside it, somehow.
I don’t know—”
His teeth ground together in sudden, savage pain.
“But then these monsters came.
They burned our houses, to drive out our women and children, so that they could catch them.
They’re taking us somewhere.
I don’t know where.
But my son John is lost.”
The red eyes came pleadingly back to Bob Star’s face.
“You haven’t seen a little blue-eyed lad—”
So this, Bob Star thought bitterly, was to be the fate of all humanity.
“Do the creatures ever come in here?”
His question came of some vague and hopeless impulse toward escape.
“Do they ever open that door?”
“They never come among us.”
Hector Valdin shook his head.
“The door hasn’t been opened since we were herded into the vessel —save to admit you.”
“How do they clean the floor, and feed the prisoners.”
“They don’t clean the floor,” Hector Valdin said.
“And the only food they give us is a sour slop that runs into troughs by the wall.”
The hopeless eyes searched Bob Star again, with a weary wonderment.
“Where was your home?” he asked.
“I think I never saw you in Votanga.”
Bob Star had looked away from him, across the hopeless murmuring misery of the thousands sitting and lying on the floor, and then back at the massive locked grating at the top of the ramp.
“It doesn’t matter, if you don’t feel like talking.” Hector Valdin shrugged.
“Most of us are still too dazed to know just what happened.” He straightened wearily.
“Anyhow, friend, I must go on now, to look for my son, John—”
A sudden blue light had come into Bob Star’s eyes.
And a smile had come over his thin face, a hard and dangerous smile.
“Wait, Hector Valdin!”
His voice had a bright and eager ring.
“I’ll tell you who we are, and how we came to be here.”
“Never mind,” the gaunt man muttered.
“It doesn’t really matter.
I must find John—”
“Wait!” Bob Star called urgently.
“If you honor the name of John Star—”