"What do you care?" Luhor waved a hand as if dismissing the fallen foe. "He was one of the chosen. You may take his place, Earthman, since you have so neatly disabled him." His large weird eyes took in Mark's physique with a new interest.
To Aladdo he said, "You have your wish." Again there was that odd note of deference in his voice. He bowed slightly and turned away again to the gathered little group of men.
"When do we start?" Mark whispered eagerly to Aladdo.
But the Venusian's eyes were preternaturally bright. A frail hand was held up for silence. Mark stood tense, listening. The brightness of Aladdo's eyes seemed to increase.
And then Mark heard it. They all heard it. It was unbelievable.
The low, powerful hum of a repulsion beam rent the stillness. It was faint and far away at first, but became steadily louder. This, Mark knew, was not the hornet's hum of the tiny craft the Prison Bureau sent with supplies; this was the unmistakable vibration of a Spacer hovering above them!
Soon the immense bulk of the spaceship dropped slowly from the cloud banks above, like a silvery ghost descending. It hovered fifty feet above the islet, the powerful repulsion beam humming its deafening drone. An under-hull lock opened. A long flexible ladder rushed uncoiling through the murky atmosphere until it struck the ground a dozen paces from the barracks.
"Back!" Luhor's voice crackled like an icy javelin as an avalanche of humanity scrambled toward the ladder, clawing, tearing and screaming. In his hand he held an atom-blast capable of annihilating that entire snarling group. They saw it and halted uncertainly. Luhor strode calmly toward the ladder and again shouted, "Back, you vermin!" He brought the weapon up as if to fire, and the tattered dregs who had been human beings still prized life enough to retreat sullenly.
In a cold voice Luhor called names from a list in his hand. His huge purple orbs inspected each man to step forward, then he waved them toward the ladder. Aladdo was first, and Mark's heart leaped as the Venusian scrambled up the weaving ladder, grasping the metal rungs with fragile hands. One by one, fifteen convicts were called. Mark was among the last, and he heard Luhor ordering the remaining convicts into the swamp. Two disobeyed and leaped forward desperately. Luhor's atom-blast spat, one man dropped in his tracks and the other went scrambling back. Cries, imprecations, curses and pleadings dwindled as the men retreated to the mud.
It was then that Luhor himself began to ascend the rungs, as the ladder was slowly pulled up. A rush of maddened convicts clawed at empty air as the stairway to freedom rose above their heads. Luhor laughed mockingly down at them. Mark, just above, suddenly hated Luhor for that.