He touched the tapestry twice; it swept away from him, and a staircase was visible, leading down through stone or metal—he could not tell which. Stuart fought back the impulse that urged him to race down those curving spiral steps. The girl had spoken of traps.
He went warily, testing each tread before he put his weight upon it. Though he did not think that the snares of the Aesir would be so simple.
At the bottom, he emerged into a vaulted chamber, tiny by comparison with the one he had left. It was oval, domed ceiling and walls and floor shining with a milky radiance—except at one spot.
There he saw a door—transparent. Through it he looked into the pit. He was on a level with the floor of that shaft now; he could see the dozen figures still standing motionless in a huddled group, and a few feet beyond the glassy pane was the Earthgirl. She was looking directly at him, but her dark eyes had a blind seeking, as though the door was opaque from her side.
Stuart paused, his hand on the complicated mechanism that, he guessed, would open the portal. His hard, dark face was impassive, but he was conscious of an unfamiliar stirring deep within him. From above, he had not seen the girl's beauty.
He saw it now.
She couldn't be an Earthgirl—entirely. She must be one of those disturbingly lovely interplanetary halfbreeds. Earth-blood she had, of course, and predominantly, but there was something more, the pure essence of beauty that blazed through her like a flame kindled in a lamp of crystal. In all his wanderings between the worlds, Stuart had never seen a girl as breathtakingly lovely as this one.
His hand moved on the controls: the door slid silently open. The girl's eyes brightened. She gave a little gasp and ran toward him. Without question she sought refuge in his arms, and for a moment Stuart held her—not unwillingly.
He thrust her away gently.