"What is it, Pegrani?" The Zara's chalky face went whiter still.
"The Rulans, Your Majesty. They have endeavored to communicate with the prisoners."
"Did they succeed?" Clyone's voice was terrible in its fury.
"They did not. I destroyed the messenger, and the message itself was lost in the jungle where Carson flung it."
The Zara shot a fleeting glance in Blaine's direction and permitted herself the ghost of a smile. "It is well," she breathed. "But it must not happen again. Have Tiedor brought to me."
Pegrani hurried off to do her bidding and Blaine turned uncertainly to follow.
"You will remain, Carson—you and Farley." The incisive voice of the leopard woman halted him in his tracks.
Tiedor was chief of the Rulans, it developed. There was but a handful of them in the realm and they were the last survivors of the civilization of Europa; descendants of those original brave souls who had settled on Io as a last resort in the effort to perpetuate their kind.
He was a magnificent creature, this Tiedor, tall and straight in his muscular leanness and with wide-set gray eyes in the face of a Greek god. Olive-skinned like the messenger, he was, and with the high forehead of an intellectual. He swept the assemblage with a haughty gaze when he faced the Zara.