For its kind had endured hi the face of all adversity, perhaps since the planets of the Sun were born.
The death of it was somehow dreadful.
“It had tortured her!” gasped Hal Samdu.
“It deserved to die!”
They turned from it then, to lift Jay Kalam, who was already returning to consciousness, struggling to sit up.
“Only stunned!” he muttered.
“So it’s finished?
Good.
We must get on to Aladoree.
Before others come.
If it called for aid—Hal, please help Giles and Ulnar out of the cell.
Must—work—fast!”
He dropped back again.
He had, John Star saw, been cruelly hurt when the tentacles flung him down.
His fine face was thin and drawn with pain, his grave eyes closed.
Gasping, he lay there a moment, then whispered:
“John? Find her.
I’ll be all right.
We must be quick!”
John Star left him then.
He ran around that mountain of slow green death, and found another grating hi the floor.
He dropped to his knees, peering into darkness but faintly relieved by the green rays that streamed through the bars from the hall.
At last he made out a slight form, lying on the bare floor, sleeping.
“Aladoree!” he called.
“Aladoree Anthar!”
The slender dim shape of her did not stir, he heard her quiet breathing—it seemed strange to him that she should be sleeping so peacefully, so like a child, when the fate of the System depended on a thing she knew.
“Aladoree!” He spoke louder.
“Wake up.”
She rose, then, quickly.
Her quiet voice showed complete possession of her faculties, though it was dull with a heavy weight of apathy.
“Yes.
Who are you, here?”
“John Ulnar, and your———”
“John Ulnar!”
Her low, tired voice cut him off, cold with scorn.
“You’ve come, I suppose, to help your cowardly kinsman make me betray the specifications for AKKA?
I’ll warn you now that you’re going to be disappointed.
The human race is not all your own cowardly breed.
Do what you like, I can keep the secret till I die—and that, I think, won’t be very long!”
“No, Aladoree!” he appealed, shocked and hurt by her bitter scorn.
“No, Aladoree, you mustn’t think that.
We’ve come———”
“John Ulnar———” her voice cut him, hard with contempt.
Then Giles Habibula and Hal Samdu dropped by the grating.
“Bless my eyes, lass!
It’s a fearful time since old Giles has heard your voice.
A mortal time! How are you, lass?” “Giles! Giles Habibula?”
In the voiceless cry that came up from darkness through the bars was incredulous relief, ineffable joy that brought a quick, throbbing ache to John Star’s heart.
All the contemptuous scorn was gone; only pure delight was left, tremulous, complete.
“Ah, yes, lass, it’s Giles.