“He’s a Newcomer spy,” quoth the other. “Let’s put him under arrest.”
“And leave this gate unguarded?” demanded the other. “Sound the signal,” and he jerked his head toward a system of levers and gauges on the wall beside the doorjamb.
“There’s a bigger reward for capture than for warning,” objected his friend in turn, “and whoever comes to take this man will claim ‘capture.’ I’ll guard here, and you take him in, then we’ll divide—”
“No. Yours is the idea. I’ll guard and you take him in.” The second man studied me apprehensively. “He’s big, and looks strong, even without weapons.”
“Don’t be afraid,” I urged. “I’ll make no resistance, if you’ll only conduct me to your commander. I can show him that I’m no spy or enemy.”
Both stared narrowly. “No spy? No enemy?” asked the broad-faced one who had first spoken. Then, to his comrade: “No reward, then.”
“I think there’ll be a reward,” was the rejoinder, and the second man’s hand stole to the sword-weapon. With a whispering rasp it cleared from its scabbard. “If he’s dead, we get pay for both warning and capture—”
His thumb touched a button at the pommel of the hilt. The dull blade suddenly glowed like heated iron, and from it crackled and pulsed little rainbow rays.
There was no time to think or plan or ponder. I moved in, with a knowing speed that surprised me as much as the two guards. Catching the fellow’s weapon wrist, I clamped it firmly and bent it back and around. He whimpered and swore, and his glowing sword dropped. Its radiant blade almost fell on my naked foot. Before the clang of its fall was through echoing, I had caught it up, and set the point within inches of its owner’s unprotected face.
“Quiet, or I’ll roast you,” I told him.
The other had drawn a weapon of his own, a pistol-form arrangement. I turned on him, but too late. He pressed the trigger, and from the muzzle came—not a projectile but a flying, spouting filament of cord that seemed to spring on me like a long thin snake and to fasten coil after coil around my body. The stuff that gushed from the gun-muzzle seemed plastic in form, but hardened so quickly upon contact with the air, it bound me like wire. Half a dozen adroit motions of the fellow’s gun hand, and my arms were caught to my body. I dropped my sword to prevent it burning me, and tried to break away, but my bonds were too much for me.
“Let me out of this,” I growled, and kicked at the man with my still unbound foot. He snapped a half-hitch on my ankle, and threw me heavily. Triumphant laughter came from both adversaries. Then:
“What’s this?”
The challenge was clear, rich, authoritative. Someone else had come, from a rearward door into the stonewalled vestibule where the encounter was taking place.
A woman this time, not of great height, and robust but not heavy. She was dressed for vigorous action in dark slacks with buskins to make them snug around ankles and calves, a jerkin of stout material that was faced with metal armor plates and left bare her round, strong arms. A gold-worked fillet bound her tawny hair back from a rosy, bold-featured face—a nose that was positively regal, a mouth short and firm but not hard, and blue eyes that just now burned and questioned. She wore a holstered pistol, and a cross-belt supported several instruments of a kind I could not remember seeing before. A crimson cloak gave color and dignity to her costume, and plainly she was someone of position, for both the men stiffened to attention.
“A spy,” one ventured. “He pushed in, claimed he was no enemy, then tried to attack—”
“They lie,” I broke in, very conscious of my naked helplessness before her regard. “They wanted to kill me and be rewarded for a false story of vigilance. I only defended myself.”
“Get him on his feet,” the young woman said, and the two guards obeyed. Then her eyes studied me again. “Gods! What a mountain of a man!” she exclaimed. “Can you walk, stranger?”
“Barely, with these bonds.”
“Then manage to do so.” She flung off her cloak and draped it over my nakedness. “Walk along beside me. No tricks, and I promise you fair hearing.”
We went through the door by which she had entered, into a corridor beyond. It was lighted by small, brilliant bulbs at regular intervals. Beyond, it gave into several passages. She chose one of them and conducted me along. “You are surely not of us,” she commented. “Men I have seen who are heavier than you, but none taller. Whence came you?”
I remembered the strange voice that had instructed me. “I am from a far world,” I replied. “It is called—yes, Earth. Beyond that, I know nothing. Memory left me.”
“The story is a strange one,” she commented. “And your name?”
“I do not know that, either. Who are you?”
“Doriza—a gentlewoman of the guard. My inspection tour brought me by chance to where you fought my outposts. But it is not for you to ask questions. Enter here.”
We passed through another door, and I found myself in an office. A man in richly-embossed armor platings sat there. He had a fringe of pale beard, and his eyes were bluer than the gentlewoman Doriza’s.
She made a gesture of salute, hand at shoulder height, and reported the matter. He nodded for her to fall back to a corner.
“Stranger,” he said to me, “can you think of no better tale to tell than you now offer?”
“I tell the truth,” was my reply, not very gracious.
“You will have to prove that,” he admonished me.
“What proof have I?” I demanded. “On this world of yours—Dondromogon, isn’t it called?—I’m no more than an hour
