'Yes,' I replied.
'Praised be the ashes of my ancestors!' he exclaimed. 'I feared that you were not.'
'Why should I not be?' I demanded. 'What is this all about?'
'Tor Hatan, the fat old treasure bag, is gone mad,' he exclaimed.
'Tor Hatan gone mad? What do you mean? What has that got to do with me?'
'He swears that you have abducted his daughter.'
In an instant I was upon my feet. 'Abducted Sanoma Tora!' I cried. 'Has something happened to her? Tell me, quickly.'
'Yes, she is gone, all right,' said my informant, 'and there is something mighty mysterious about it.'
But I did not wait to hear more. Seizing my harness, I adjusted it as I ran up the spiral runway toward the hangars on the roof of the barracks. I had no authority or permit to take out a flier, but what did that mean to me if Sanoma Tora was in danger?
The hangar guards sought to detain and question me. I do not recall what I told them; I know that I must have lied to them, for they let me run out a swift one-man flier and an instant later I was racing through the night toward the palace of Tor Hatan.
As it stands but little more than two haads from the barracks, I was there in but a few moments, and, as I landed in the garden, which was now brilliantly lighted, I saw a number of people congregated there, among whom were Tor Hatan and Sil Vagis.
As I leaped from the deck of the flier, the former came angrily toward me. 'So it is you!' he cried. 'What have you to say for yourself? Where is my daughter?'
'That is what I have come to ask, Tor Hatan,' I replied.
'You are at the bottom of this,' he cried. 'You abducted her. She told Sil Vagis that this very night you had demanded her hand in marriage and that she had refused you.'
'I did ask for her hand,' I said, 'and she refused me. That part is true; but if she has been abducted, in the name of your first ancestor, do not waste time trying to connect me with the diabolical plot. I had nothing to do with it. How did it happen? Who was with her?'
'Sil Vagis was with her. They were walking in the garden,' replied Tor Hatan.
'You saw her abducted,' I asked, turning to Sil Vagis, 'and you are here unwounded and alive?'
He started to stammer. 'There were many of them,' he said. 'They overpowered me.'
'You saw them?' I asked.
'Yes.'
'Was I among them?' I demanded.
'It was dark. I could not recognize any of them, perhaps they were disguised.'
'They overpowered you?' I asked him.
'Yes,' he said.
'You lie!' I exclaimed. 'Had they laid hands upon you they would have killed you. You ran away and hid, never drawing a weapon to defend the girl.'
'That is a lie,' cried Sil Vagis. 'I fought with them, but they overpowered me.'
I turned to Tor Hatan. 'We are wasting time,' I said. 'Is there no one who can give us a clue as to the identity of these men and the direction they took in their flight? How and whence came they? How and whence did they depart?'
'He is trying to throw you off the track, Tor Hatan,' said Sil Vagis. 'Who else could it have been but a disgruntled suitor? What would you say if I should tell you that the metal of the men who stole Sanoma Tora was the metal of the warriors of Hastor?'
'I would say that you are a liar,' I replied. 'If it was so dark that you could not recognize faces, how could you decipher the insignia upon their harness?'
At this juncture another officer of the 91st Umak joined us. 'We have found one who may, perhaps, shed some light upon the subject,' he said, 'if he lives long enough to speak.'
Men had been searching the grounds of Tor Hatan and that portion of the city adjacent to his palace, and now several approached bearing a man, whom they laid upon the sward at our feet. His broken and mangled body was entirely naked, and as he lay there gasping feebly for breath, he was a pitiful spectacle.
A slave dispatched into the palace returned with stimulants, and when some of these had been forced between his lips, the man revived slightly.
'Who are you?' asked Tor Hatan.
'I am a warrior of the city guard,' replied the man feebly.
An officer approached Tor Hatan excitedly. 'My men have just found six more bodies close to the point at which we discovered this man,' he said. 'They are all naked and similarly broken and mangled.'
'Perhaps we shall get to the bottom of this yet,' said Tor Hatan, and, turning again to the poor, broken thing upon the scarlet sward, he directed him to proceed.
'We were on night patrol over the city when we saw a craft running without lights. As we approached it and turned our searchlight upon it, I caught a single, brief glimpse of it. It bore no colors or insignia to denote its origin and its design was unlike that of any ship I have ever seen. It had a long, low, enclosed cabin upon either side of which were mounted two peculiar-looking guns. This was all I had time to note, except that I saw a man directing one of the guns in our direction. The Padwar in command of our ship immediately gave orders to fire upon the stranger, and at the same time he hailed him. At that instant our ship dissolved in mid-air; even my harness fell from me. I remember falling, that is all,' and with these words he gasped once and died.
Tor Hatan called his people around him. 'There must have been someone about the palace or the grounds who saw something of this occurrence,' he said. 'I command that no matter who may be involved, whoever has any knowledge whatsoever of this affair, shall speak.'
A slave stepped forward, and as he approached Tor Hatan eyed him with haughty arrogance.
'Well,' demanded the odwar, 'what have you to say? Speak!'
'You have commanded it, Tor Hatan,' said the slave; 'otherwise I should not speak, for when I have told what I saw I shall have incurred the enmity of a powerful noble,' and he glanced quickly toward Sil Vagis.
'And if you speak the truth, man, you will have won the friendship of a Padwar whose sword is not so mean but that it may protect you even from a powerful noble,' I said quickly, and I, too, glanced at Sil Vagis, for it was in my mind that what the fellow had to tell might be none too flattering to the soft fop who masqueraded beneath the title of a warrior.
'Speak!' commanded Tor Hatan impatiently. 'And see to it that thou dost not lie.'
'For fourteen years I have served faithfully in your palace, Tor Hatan,' replied the man, 'ever since I was brought to Helium a prisoner of war after the fall and sack of Kobol, where I served in the body guard of the Jed of Kobol, and in all that time you have had no reason to question my truthfulness. Sanoma Tora trusted me, and had I had a sword this night she might still be with us.'
'Come! Come!' cried Tor Hatan; 'get to the point. What saw you?'
'The fellow saw nothing,' snapped Sil Vagis. 'Why waste time upon him? He seeks but to glory in a little brief notoriety.
'Let him speak,' I exclaimed.
'I had just ascended the first ramp to the second level of the palace,' explained the slave, 'on my way to the sleeping quarters of Tor Hatan to arrange his sleeping silks and furs for the night as is my custom, and, pausing for a moment to look out into the garden, I saw Sanoma Tora and Sil Vagis walking in the moonlight. Conscious that I should not thus observe them, I was about to continue on my way about my duties when I saw a flier dropping silently out of the night toward the garden. Its motors were noiseless, it showed no light. It seemed a spectral ship and of such strange design that even if for no other reason it would have arrested my attention, but there were other reasons. Unlighted ships move through the night for no good purpose, and so I paused to watch it.
'It landed silently and quickly behind Sanoma Tora and Sil Vagis; nor did they seem aware of its presence until their attention was attracted by the slight clanking of the accoutrements of one of the several warriors who sprang from its low cabin as it grounded. Then Sil Vagis wheeled about. For just an instant he stood as though petrified and then as the strange warriors leaped toward him, he turned and fled into the concealing shrubbery of the garden.'
