But Duane said nothing, and after a tense moment the flame died from the Lady Loala's eyes. Her features tightened to a silver mask, and she turned to the guard Amarro.
"Remove this creature from my sight," she commanded. "He should die now, but the Supreme Council must be shown that there were Slumberers, and that one was in our very midst. Turn him into the pens with his fellow swine."
And she turned her back. Amarro prodded Steve toward the door. "Move along, earthman," he commanded gruffly.
They left the administration building, started toward the prison camp. But when the door had closed behind them, and they two were alone, a strange thing happened. Amarro turned and stared at Steve, long and appraisingly, then spoke a sentence which sent a blaze of fire coursing through Steve's veins.
"You are a strange person," he said. "You arouse my curiosity, earthman. Tell me—have you kinsmen on distant Terra?"
CHAPTER XVII
Fortress in the Fen
Out of the depths of despair, Amarro's simple query came to Duane like the warm and welcome hand of a friend in blinding fog. Excitement hammered his pulse-beats to a rising fever. In vain he reminded himself that Amarro's choice of words might be purely coincidental, that the Daan prison guard might be, as he had claimed, merely curious. For Steve was thinking of Okuno's last instructions. He heard again the voice of the grave and gentle masquerader on Earth:
"Mark well this interchange, O Slumberer. Should one say to you, 'Have you kinsmen on distant Terra?', answer that questioner—"