Kari watched him. Stuart’s eyes were shadowed.
“John Starr and Lorna,” he whispered. “I wonder what their world was like, a thousand years ago? We’ve got all the worlds now, all the planets of the System from Jupiter to the smallest asteroid. But we don’t rule them, as men owned their own Earth in those days. We’re slaves to the Aesir.”
“The Aesir are—are gods.”
“John Starr didn’t think so,” Stuart said. “Neither do I. And at worst I can always die, as he did. Listen, Kari.” He gripped her arms. “Think. You’ve lived here for a while. Is there any weapon against those devils?”
She met his gaze steadily. “Yes,” she said. “But—”
“What is it? Where?”
Abruptly Kari’s face changed. She pressed herself against Stuart, avoiding his lips, simply seeking—he knew—warmth and companionship. She was crying softly.
“So long—” Kari whispered, her arms tight around him. “I’ve been here so long—with the gods. And I’m so lonely, Derek Stuart. So lonely for green fields and fires and the blue sky. I wish—”
“You’ll see Earth again,” Stuart promised. At that Kari pulled away. Her strange half-breed loveliness was never more real than then, with tears sparkling on her dark lashes, and her mouth trembling.
She said, a catch in her voice, “I’ll show you the weapon, Stuart.”
She turned toward the wall. Her hand moved in a quick gesture. A panel opened there in the glowing surface.
Kari reached in, and when she withdrew her arm, it was as though she held a torrent of blood that poured down from her grip. It was a cloak, Stuart saw, made of some material so fine that it rippled like water. Its crimson violence was bizarre against the cool green of Kari’s garment.
“This cloak—” she said. “You must wear it if we face the Aesir.”
Stuart grimaced. “What good is a piece of cloth? A blaster gun’s what I want.”
“A blaster wouldn’t help,” Kari said. “This is more than a piece of cloth, Stuart. It is half-alive—made so by the sciences of the Aesir. Wear it! It will protect you.”
She swung the great, scarlet billows about Stuart’s shoulders. Her fingers fumbled with the clasp at his throat. And then—
She lies!
The desperate urgency of the thought roared through Stuart’s mind. He knew that soundless voice, so sharp now with violent intensity. His hands came up to rip the cloak from him—
He was too late. Kari sprang back, wide-eyed, as the fastenings of the cloak tightened like a noose about Stuart’s neck. He felt a stinging shock that ran like white fire along his spine and up into his brain. One instant of blazing disorientation, a hopeless, despairing cry in his mind—a double cry, as of two telepathetic voices—and then, his muscles too weak to hold him, he crashed down upon the floor.
It was not paralysis. He was simply drained of all strength. There was pressure about his throat, cold flames along his spine and in his brain, and he could feel the texture of the cloak wrapped about him, striking through his spaceman’s garb—tingling, sentient, half-alive!
He whispered an oath. Kari’s face had not changed. He read something strangely like pity in her dark eyes.
From the gap in the wall whence she had drawn the cloak came a figure, cloaked in black, a jet cowl hiding its head and face completely. It was taller than the girl by a foot. It shuffled forward with an odd, rocking gait, and paused near her.
Stuart whispered, “I—should have remembered. The—the Aesir can change their shapes. Those giants I saw weren’t real. And neither are you—not even human!”
Kari shook her head. “I am real,” she said slowly. “He is not.” She gestured toward the black-cloaked figure. “But we are all of the Aesir. And, as we thought, you were sent by the Protectors. Now your power is gone, and you must walk the Long Orbit with the other captives.”
The cowled creature came forward. It bent, but Stuart could see nothing in the shadow of the hood. A fold of cloth writhed out and touched Stuart’s forehead.
Darkness wrapped him like the shroud of the scarlet cloak.
IV
For a long time he had only his thoughts for company. They were not pleasant. He felt alone, as he had never felt so utterly lonely and deserted before anywhere in the System. Now he realized that even since his landing on Asgard, he had had companionship of a sort—that the twin voices murmuring in his brain had been more real than he had realized. A living warmth, a sense of—of presence—had been with him then.
But it was gone now. Its absence left a black void within him. He stood alone.
And Kari. … If he saw her again when his hands were free, he would kill her. He knew that. But—but her shining smile lightened the darkness that engulfed him now. He had never seen loveliness like Kari’s, and he had known so many women, so many, too many. … A man who has fought his way Sunward and back again by way of Pluto’s chasmed midnight is not so easily misled by the smile of a pretty woman.
Kari was no ordinary woman—God knew she was not! Perhaps not even human, perhaps not even real at all. It might be that very touch of alienage that had stamped her shining image upon his memory, but he could not put the image aside now. He saw her clearly in the darkness of his captivity and the deeper dark of his loneliness, now that the voices were stilled. Lovely, exotic, with the eyes full of longing and terror—what lies they told!—and that lovely, that dazzling smile.
Bitterness made a wry taste in his mouth. Either she was one of the Aesir, or she served them. Served them well. A knife in the heart was the only answer he had for her, and he meant to give her that edged answer if he lived. But she was so very lovely. …
Slowly the veil of darkness lifted. He
