"I'm serious. That really happened." Gerry snapped. The grin faded from Brent's freckled face.
"Then it must have been Chester Sand," he said promptly.
"Why do you say that?"
Brent shrugged.
"Because he's the only man aboard that I don't know too well to suspect."
"Interesting logic," Gerry grunted, "But we can't lock a man up on such negative grounds. Keep your eyes open. I'm going to try to sweat some information out of someone as soon as we get through this ceremony of visiting the king of this place."
Women working in the fields looked up as the Viking passed, lifting a hand to shade their eyes as they stared aloft at the soaring space-ship. Other women drove small carts along the white roads that wound through the fields. There did not seem to be any men in this land at all. Then, along the far horizon ahead, there began to lift the domes and towers and minarets of a mighty city. Closana proudly lifted her arm.
"The Golden City of Larr!" she said, "Capitol of our land of Savissa. None but our own people have ever penetrated those walls except as prisoners of war."
The walled city of Larr dominated the plain in all its towered splendor. Its walls of polished yellow stone were more than a hundred feet high. The serrated battlements at the top were faced with plates of thin gold. Domes of blue and scarlet gleamed within the walls. Slender minarets lifted their lattices high in the air. In the center was a massive round tower whose top was shaped like the point of a golden arrow.