"Starstone Chamber. The Council has been called to vote on what dispensation to make of both of you. Atel—hold his other arm. If the beasts wear down our shield we will all be thrown on our heads again."
The Earthman allowed the Varans to take his elbows without any protest. He had a very vivid picture of himself buttered crimsonly over the inner surface of the rock arching above. Save the heroics for later, he thought.
He had imagined a Council meeting as a huge affair, with all the banked chairs filled; but actually there were only about twenty of the Varese present, plus the lone, mysterious Earthman. Andreson scanned the stranger's features eagerly as they approached.
"Well, I'll be damned!" he shouted. "What are you doing here?"
"Hello, Ken," Kimball said calmly. "I hardly know myself. Read my letter yet?"
"No. Say—are you responsible for that Surrealist trickery back in our own time? I should have guessed it. I ought to push your face in."
"I wouldn't blame you," the scientist agreed. "But I never dreamed you'd hit upon it by accident, before you'd read my note explaining what it was. In the letter I made a date to meet you there, and I arrived a little early. I went out to pick up some supplies, and while I was gone—well—"
"I'll have to let you off this time. You already look a bit damaged, Johnny."
Damaged was hardly the word. Kimball looked as if he had been caught in a cement mixer. His clothes were filthy and cut to ribbons; bloody knees showed through holes in his trousers, he had a long, raw cut across his forehead, and his voice was husky with weariness.