Vanning caught himself and obeyed. The Swamja turned and leveled his gun. Again the blazing, brief agony whirled sickeningly through the detective's body.
It passed; silently he resumed his task. From time to time, he tended to the Swamja's wants. But he also found time to glance at Lysla occasionally.
When the ceremony began, Vanning could not tell. He sensed that the assembly had grown tenser, and noticed that the eye of every Swamja was focused on the black pool. But there was nothing else. Silence, and the deformed figures staring at the jet square in the center.
Was this all? It seemed so, after half an hour had passed. Not once had the Swamja he tended demanded attention. What the devil were the creatures seeing in that pool?
For they saw something, Vanning was certain of that. Once a shiver of pure ecstasy rippled through the Swamja's gross body. And once Vanning thought he heard a musical note, almost above the pitch of audibility. It was gone instantly.
Zeeth had said that the Swamja possessed other senses than those of humans. Perhaps those strange senses were being used now. He did not know then, nor was he ever to know, the non-human psychology of the Swamja, or the purpose of the black pool. Yet Vanning unmistakably sensed that here was something above and beyond the limitations of his own humanity.
He grew tired, shifting from foot to foot, but it seemed the ceremony would never end. He watched Lysla. Thus he saw her bend forward with a filled goblet—and, losing her balance, spill the liquid contents into the lap of the Swamja she tended.
Instantly she shrank back, her tray clattering to the floor. Stark panic fear was in her posture as she cowered there. There was reason. The Swamja was rising, turning, and in his huge hand was a gun....
He was going to kill Lysla. Vanning knew that. Already he was familiar with the Swamja code that did not forgive errors. And as he saw the stubby finger tightening on the trigger-button, Vanning acted with swift, unthinking accuracy.