The priestess seized on the one word she understood. "Magic! Aie, Thy forgiveness, O Eternal One. I leap to obey Thy commands."
"Well, get going—" commented Steve gloomily—"before there aren't any Wild Ones left to capture. Well?"
Chuck scratched his head as the priestess ran to the warrior captain, Jain, and transmitted Steve's orders.
"I don't get it," he complained. "I don't get it at all. Whose side are you playing on, anyway?"
"I'm tired explaining," said Steve. "Wait and see!"
He hadn't long to wait. The scheme of wily Odysseus worked as well in the Thirty-fifth Century as in pre-historic Troy.[2] Better, perhaps. The Trojans had their Cassandra; the Wild Ones had no soothsayer to warn them against a ruse. Men who had never won a battle against their better-armed adversaries leaped eagerly through the breeches abandoned by the retreating women.
In a solid swarm they flooded half-way across the open courtyard, leaving flanks and rear exposed. And then:
"Warriors!" cried Steve. "Close the openings behind them! Your foes are trapped!"
And it was so! The Wild Ones were caught in a vise; their thin ranks were hopelessly sandwiched between divisions of warriors and workers. The very portals they had fought so hard to win were now closed avenues to freedom.