“Sunlight will kill me.”
There was a little silence.
“Why?”
“I was space-burned. That’s why I joined the Legion. It’s a kind of allergy, you know—I was so badly burned in space by direct solar rays that even filtered sunlight will kill me now in a few hours.”
Tony felt his stomach move sickeningly. So that was why Jacklyn had remained in Sub-Sahara for fifty years. A prison with its mockery of freedom—
“Let one of the others go, sir!”
“I’ll go,” Jimmy offered—but Desquer snarled at him.
“Silence! You know these caves, Jacklyn—”
“The captain knows them!”
“He’s badly burned. That heat-ray touched the bone. He couldn’t stand a long trek. Here!” Desquer bent over the dead Copts and rapidly began to strip them of their garments. “If sunlight will kill you, stay out of it.”