Thorn was momentarily bewildered, badly startled. He had expected some blowsy, barbaric, aging wench, whom he could, without difficulty, trick out of the secret he wanted. But this girl was as beautiful-and as dangerous-looking-as a sword blade.
CHAPTER V
Secret Enemy
IN the queerly tense silence Thorn stared at Lana Cain. Then the silence was suddenly broken by the shuffling entrance of a grotesque, four-legged creature that had followed the pirate girl into the room. It stared at Thorn with blazing green eyes.
"It's a space dog, John!” exclaimed Sual Av wonderingly. “You've heard of them."
"I've heard of them,” Thorn muttered. “But this is the first one I've ever seen."
The space dog stood three feet high at the shoulder. Its body was of dusty, mineraline gray flesh that had an inorganic look. Its four legs ended in heavy digging paws, and its mouth was furnished with great grindingtusks. It had no nostrils, for the creature was not an air-breathing animal.
It was, in fact, one of a unique species. The early explorers who first visited the asteroid Ceres had been amazed to find these creatures living on that airless little world. They were the product of an evolution working without atmosphere, creatures able to assimilate the inorganic elements they dug from the ground, and consume them by a chemical process other than oxidization. They had dim telepathic powers by which their rudimentary minds communed.
"Ool will not hurt you,” said Lana Cain crisply to Thorn.
She glanced at the blazing-eyed creature, and it lay down at her feet as it received her telepathic command.