A half hour passed, while steps blended into winding corridors and corridors changed back into stairs. Lolan's head was spinning by the time they reached a heavy bronze door. Irak flashed a smile. "Now—watch!" he breathed. His thumb flattened on a button.
Seconds dragged out. Nothing happened. But ... was the door moving? A crack of light split down the middle of the portal. It widened, and suddenly the two parts drew wide and light and sound flooded through them. Lolan started. Dumbly he moved ahead. What he saw made his legs wobbly with astonishment.
Below them, in a spacious, high-vaulted hall, thousands of men were at work with various machines. At one end of the room a continual stream of Venusians filed through one door, past a long table where workers were doling out some kind of apparatus, and back through another door. The clank of stamp machines, the scream of drill-presses, the whine of lathes, blended into a confused wail. And over all was the roar of the underground river, that flowed between black banks squarely through the middle of the cavern.
Questions sprang to Lolan's lips, but Irak stifled them. "Come along," he ordered. "Others can explain better than I."
A winding path led down the wall of the place. At the bottom they turned left and found their way to where a large crowd of men were in noisy conference with two persons in their midst. Irak raised his voice in a triumphant shout. Instantly the babble broke. Irak bowed low as Atarkus emerged from the crowd.
"It is done, Emperor! I bring you—Prince Lolan!"
Unnameable feelings swept over Lolan as a great cry went up. Before he could move, he was surrounded by a laughing, shouting crowd that grew steadily larger. Their words were only a confused sound in his ears, but he knew what they meant: That he was whole-heartedly welcomed back into the race from which he had been stolen so long ago!
Mora came to his side, then, flushed and happy. "We sent for you," she said, "as soon as we learned you had been imprisoned. We have wanted so long to tell you of our plans. We—we need you."
"But we were afraid," Atarkus frowned. "It is with joy that we receive you, Prince, but ... sadness has awaited your coming."