And Hector Valdin came back, with a little of the leaden apathy already lifted from his face.
And others, near at hand, gathered around them to listen.
For Bob Star’s voice rang strong with an urgent, compelling eagerness.
And he spoke magic names, from the glorious history of man.
“… Jay Kalam, who is commander of the Legion… The big man, just sitting up, is Hal Samdu, who went with my father and the others out to the Runaway Star… Giles Habibula—he can open the door, to let us out into the ship!… My mother, the keeper of the peace.
She is a prisoner, now, about to be murdered…”
Bob Star talked on.
He groped for stirring words.
He was a little surprised at the confidence, the ringing strength, in his voice.
For in his heart he knew there was no hope.
He knew they were all cattle for the Cometeers.
He knew that Stephen Oreo could not be killed.
Yet soon many men were listening to him.
A quick interest was penetrating the leaden despair upon their weary faces.
And the bright finger of hope transfigured now one and now another—
16 John Star’s Son
The first conversation of Jay Kalam and Kay Nymidee was curiously hard to interrupt.
It had begun, out upon the jewel-smooth armor of the planet, when the girl called out for Hal Samdu to stop, and the surprised commander addressed her in her own language.
Even in the presence of their captors, her face shone with sudden delight.
She ran joyously to the commander, and threw her slim arms about him.
She lifted on tiptoe to kiss both his lean cheeks.
Then, almost ignoring the creatures herding them into the ship, she was talking at him furiously.
And Jay Kalam replied, awkwardly, haltingly, but as if he understood.
They scarcely paused when their captors pushed them down into the prison-hold, and locked the massive grate behind them.
On the ramp inside, they kept on talking.
Kay Nymidee spoke very fast.
Her white face showed a great play of expression, smiling with joy, frowning with the effort of making her meaning clear; it was bright with hope, shadowed again with apprehension.
Jay Kalam’s dark face, in contrast, was intently fixed.
For the most part he merely listened, his dark brow furrowed with the effort of comprehension.
But frequently he broke in, to beg the girl to repeat, or to ask some halting question.
Bob Star came to them more than once, and went away again when they gave him no attention.
Men were following him, now, led by words like golden banners blowing.
That still amazed him, for he was only a boy, afraid, half-disabled from a strange and ancient injury.
But they did, and he went on, rejoicing in the magic of those words.
Kay Nymidee came running to him at last.
She called something and seemed hurt again because he didn’t understand.
“She’s asking,” Jay Kalam said, “if you know Spanish.”
“Spanish?”
“Yes.
That’s her language.”
“Spanish?
How does she know Spanish?”
He was bewildered.
“Isn’t she a native of the comet?”
“Kay is,” the commander said. “But her race isn’t.
I told you how improbable—”
“How does that happen?
How did her people get into the comet?”
“An odd story.”
Jay Kalam stroked at the dark angle of his jaw.