"Women!"
So swiftly that even Steve Duane, whose mind usually accepted new circumstances with lightning speed, was shocked into immobility, male figures rose and hurtled forward toward the newcomers!
But if the three time-travellers were stunned motionless, not so the women of the Tucki Clan. Barbaric they might be, superstitious they undoubtedly were—but their defensive reflexes had been trained in a hard school; the bitter school of experience.
In the twinkling of an eye, the warrior captain Jain had cried, "On guard!"—and like automatons trained to split-second precision she and her three fighters had whipped steel from scabbards and formed a shield before their priestess and their gods.
Against this biting rampart, not even such a woman-hungry sea of males dared dash itself. The cries assumed an angry, baffled tone, but the attack slowed ... stalled. For an instant there was silence, then one voice, boldly desperate, cried, "On them! What mean their weapons? They are but four, and we are many—"
Steve understood, now, why the Daans had not removed their sidearms while in all other ways holding them in strict bondage. Here was sickening evidence of the difficulties he faced in welding the pitiful remnants of humanity to a force which might overthrow Earth's invaders. Here were men who, though serfs to a master race, spent their blood, their hate, their energies upon each other rather than those who should be their natural enemies.
Eyes blazing, he thrust himself into the forefront beside Jain; his cry was a flaming challenge.
"What manner of men are you? We came in peace—but if war is what you want, then—come on! Who would first like the hot blood let from his veins?"
Answer came from an unexpected source. From the far side of the chamber ... from another door which opened suddenly ... appeared one tall and fair as Stephen Duane himself. In a glance the newcomer appraised the situation, his voice put an end to the mob's mutterings.
"Hold! What have we here? Aaah—new Women?" His cold, gray-blue eyes swept the newly-arrived group, lighted appreciatively as they came to rest on Beth, who had taken her place at Steve's side. "Good! Subdue the men and divide the warriors as you will. But touch not the golden one. She is mine!"