"It wouldn't matter. He couldn't understand a word. Besides I gave him a control pill."
"But we don't want to make a mindless slave of him," Wor remonstrated.
"Of course not," Margaret assured her alien lover. "He'd be useless that way. The drug will only paralyze his will so he will believe unquestioningly anything we tell him, and you can see that he does not receive the mark that would make him a complete slave of the Faith."
"Ssh!" Eldon heard the big warrior whisper. "I thought I heard—" A chair creaked and there were footsteps.
Silently but with utmost speed Eldon threw himself on the bed.
"You're nervous as an old woman," Margaret complained.
Wor's voice was deep in his throat. "One lives longer that way when plotting against Sin," he declared.
Eldon was lying on his back, breathing raspingly through his open mouth. Wor gave a satisfied grunt as he closed the door, and almost at once Eldon had his ear to the panel again.
"Ugh! What an ugly sight! How can you stand having that thing near you?"
"When the stakes are the control of a world one can endure much," the woman said evenly. "And it should not be for long."