Randall pulled Carol back into the subterranean chamber. But Stewart only stood there frozen in bewilderment.
Then the Mineral Analyzer's ponderous drill head slipped from its perch and came plunging down. It shattered the Hyadean's helmet and almost tore his grotesque head off, sending his weapon flying out across the plain.
The creature lay there writhing for a moment, then was still, its hideous crocodile head turned lifelessly toward Aldebaran.
Stewart, his eyes locked hypnotically on the prostrate form, could only watch with shocked fascination as the other members of the landing party appeared from behind the rocks. They stood silently around the body, then turned back toward their ship.
"Tzareans"—"Tzarean Shoal"—"Curule Assembly"—"Vrausot"—"Mittich"—"uraphi"—
Strange words and phrases whirled about in Stewart's thrashing thoughts as a great flood of deeply buried experiences rushed with cyclonic fury into the conscious levels of his mind. And he realized that, just as the sight of the Hyadean ship had swept aside the conditioning Randall had imposed upon him, so was the sight of Hyadeans—Tzareans—hurling aside another, denser curtain of conditioning.
He staggered back into the cave and fell sitting against the wall as all the suppressed knowledge and memories engulfed him.
Stewart and Harlston were seated beside the table in the Great Hall of the Curule Assembly. They were having some difficulty making themselves comfortable in chairs designed to accommodate Tzarean buttocks and tail, rather than support the human form. They were manacled, but only symbolically—with flimsy crepe paperlike handcuffs.
"Our problem," Mittich, the Hisser of the Assembly was saying, "has been clearly defined. We have captured the expeditionary ship of an alien culture that appears to be expanding in the direction of the Tzarean Shoal. We have taken pain to teach its two crew members the rudiments of our language. And we have found that the official alien response to this situation may or may not be hostile."