"Does your written history give no clue of a time when the Crypt was anything but a burial place?"
"Our people knew nothing of writing. That, too, we learned from Earthmen, my Elders learned it in secret and taught me."
"And they developed the white mist there in the Crypt, and brought the old Earthman who taught you hypnotism?" Barry asked. He pictured her frightened childhood among the dead, in the darkness so close to Craig's guards who would have killed her on sight.
The girl read his expression. "It was not so terrible," she said wistfully. "There was peace, we were not tortured for ore dust, or made to slave in mines. It is light there, even deep down; for the walls are radioactive.
"But my parents died of hearts broken by the suffering of their people. It was later that the white mist was developed, and I learned that my mission was to use it!"
A faint noise broke into their conversation—a clicking that was suddenly almost thunderous in their ears as every other sound died! It was the radio receptor signal.
In the screen, the twelve squares were filling again. The time for reports had come—and there had been no special report of victory.
Silence held, while the twelve faces grew into sharp focus. Barry noted that at least three of the men had not been among the twelve who last faced their Princess. The faces of the rest were dirty, tired, depressed. A couple were bandaged. Before a word was spoken, Barry Williams knew that the news would be bad, and premonition turned his stomach into a leaden ball.
In the screen, the twelve tired faces were silent, waiting. They were wooden, unmoving, until Deisanocta spoke, calmly, questioningly.