"He has courage."
"Let him live."
"Aye. Let him live. He may amuse us for a while...."
"And then?"
"Then the pit—with the others."
The others? Stuart slanted a glance downward. The silver mists had dissipated now, and he could see that the abyss was not bottomless. Its floor was fifty feet below the surface on which he stood, and a dozen figures were visible beneath.
They stood motionless—like statues. A burly, leather-clad Earthmen who might have been whisked from some Plutonian mine; a slim, scantily clad Earthgirl, her hair powdered blue, her costume the shining sequin-suit of a tavern entertainer. A stocky, hunch-shouldered Venusian with his slate-gray skin; a Martian girl, seven feet tall, with limbs and features of curious delicacy, her hair piled high atop that narrow skull. Another Earthman—a thin, pale, clerklike fellow. A white-skinned, handsome Callistan native, looking like Apollo, and, like all Callistans, harboring the cold savagery of a demon behind that smooth mask.
A dozen of them—drawn from all parts of the System. Stuart remembered that this was the time of the periodic tithing—which meant nothing less than a sacrifice. Once each month a few men and women would vanish—not many—and the black ships of the Aesir priests sped back to Asgard with their captives.
Not one looked up. Frozen motionless as stone, they stood there in the pit—waiting.