Upward through the broad ramps of a now motionless conveyor they ascended floor after floor, filled to over-flowing with inert Saturnians, until at last the conveyor ceased and only the polished walls of some unknown substance of what appeared to be an ascensor, remained. Nardon examined it carefully before pressing the colored disk on the side of its closed door. Noiselessly the panel slid aside revealing a shining quadrangle. Unhesitatingly they entered and the door automatically closed. A series of vari-colored disks made a triangular pattern on the left, and Bill pressed the black one at its apex. It shot upwards swiftly without the slightest jar, its incomparable smoothness gave no hint of the extraordinary speed save for the slight, hollow feeling in the pit of their stomachs its occupants felt. After a brief interval it stopped, decelerating as smoothly as it had begun, and the sliding door swept aside. And before them opened a great, transparent alcove beyond whose translucent walls and ceiling, the colossal theatricalism of the heavens was visible.
But Bill Nardon and the Panadur had no eyes for the sidereal spectacle above, two figures in the foreground held their eyes. A girl and what was evidently a man. Two figures, no more. And just now there was not the faintest hint of a belligerent move. Somehow the sight of that girl seated immobile with her exquisite hands folded on her lap, and the startling peacefulness of the man at the towering instrument he was playing, had a curious anticlimactic effect on Bill. He had not known what to expect—but surely, not this!
"Beware!" came the Panadur's warning with unusual force, as they advanced at the ready into the center of the alcove.
The man at the instrument ceased playing, and calmly, casually almost, leaned over to the silent girl and kissed her softly upon the lips, brushing the flower-like mouth with a fleeting caress. And before their uncomprehending eyes, a spectral-blue flash lit the alcove with its ghastly glare, as their lips met! Instantly, the girl's marvelously tinted flesh, like Venusian nacre superimposed on gold, with the highlights gleaming through, paled to the translucent whiteness of Jadite.
For she was golden—her eyes, her hair, the extraordinary lashes that gleamed with the age-old patina of ancient gold. Only her cold, remote serenity was as if she were enveloped in an invisible icy sheath. There was no hint of feeling, of emotional force even ... until Bill gazed into her eyes and saw the infinite depths of tragedy. As they stood transfixed, she stirred a little and said in a low, magnificent voice:
"I am Margalida, the Aurean, transmitting for my Lord. If you prefer, I shall telepath." Her deep contralto was glorious in itself, but she spoke as impersonally, as neutral, even, as if she were a mechanical instrument, nothing more. And had they known, it could not be otherwise, for her task was to serve only as an instrument of transmission for the telepathic vibrations of the creature at the instrument. Hers was a conquered race, a race sunk in cataleptic oblivion, and she no longer had a will. Her double usefulness made her life secure, for the time being. For the Cinnabarian whom she termed her "Lord" in keeping with the custom of his race, chose, to communicate only through the medium of an enslaved mind. Never, never directly, so that the telepathic vibrations of alien races had to pass through the spectrum of the captive brain and be rendered harmless. The Cinnabarians emitted directly, but received only through the subject being.
"The incredible effrontery of it!" Bill Nardon flashed to the Panadur. "Has his mind protected against our thoughts, and will only communicate through this tragic being!" Bill's lips curled in a grimace of contempt, revealing a row of dazzling, even teeth. "With such a mind of power, this ... Vampire of Life Force ... elects to communicate with us indirectly only! Maybe he fears he might be contaminated ... the colossal effrontery!"
"He's absorbing everything we're thinking," Freml thought coldly. For some minutes now, he had been engaged in "Brooding," the nearest term Earth had for the Panadur process of concentrating their energy potential, raising it to its ultimate power. His exquisite, silvery fur was an angry silver-violet now, and the beryl eyes were brilliant like faceted jewels.
"I am Kleg," the telepathic vibration came winging from the man, and even before the girl transmitted, both Bill and Freml had received the message. "The divine overlords of Danae have permitted your invasion.... If you and your companions would live, you must place yourselves and your vessel at our disposal." He was playing again, the music weaving an unearthly spell in muted minors; it rose and sank in a shower of notes that sped like living, winged things under his caressing touch. Only it was an instrument on which no human being could ever hope to play, for Kleg had four flexible arms, and slender, tendril-like fingers on his four narrow hands that flashed with vertiginous rapidity, as he probed deliberately with the unholy scalpel of his satanic music the emotional depths of the Terran and the Panadur.
"Rot! Permitted indeed! You dragged us here with some magnetic device. Tell your vampiric overlords, we acknowledge only One Divinity—the Absolute." Bill's eyes were barely open, mere electric-blue lines above his high cheek bones, while in his right hand he held the deadly Power-rapier, and an electronic-flash in the other.