For a long, long moment he sat in silence, gripping its heavy haft. Then, in the darkness, he slowly smiled.
A Malya was still a Malya, whether he wore the Federation's uniform or not.
Tomorrow they'd ship him to the Venus headquarters, the slan-chambers, death.
But this was tonight, the darkest hour, and he had a knife, and the high commissioner's carrier still stood in the court outside....
CHAPTER III
The fleet-bell was tolling the nineteenth hour before the ktar came down.
Lying in the darkness, waiting for him, Jarl battled in stubborn silence against the pain. He found himself giving heed to a thousand little things—the roughness of the pollard-weave against his lacerated cheek ... a prowling peffok's distant cry. Faint, pervasive scents of doloid dust, of must and jeol, pressed in upon him. He savored the raw taste of blood in his mouth ... the saltiness of sweat when he ran his tongue along his lips. Once, dimly, he caught the harsh rasp of Ungo's voice, drifting to him from some other room.
Ungo of Jupiter, Big Ungo the loyal. He'd come here, protesting, on a fool's mad mission. And now....
A flood of black doubt welled up in Jarl Corvett—doubt of himself, his world, his cause. Would his dreams end here, in this dreary cell? Would morning find him lancing out through space on his way to Venus and the slan-chambers?