"And you?" she gazed at me.
"John Taine," I said.
She sat up suddenly, with her shimmering hair tumbling in a white mass over her breast. Again her calm, blue-eyed gad impersonally roved us. "The big one lies," she stated. "Which one of you is leader here?"
"Our leader is dead," I burst out. "Murdered by these two—Carruthers and Duroh."
"You're a liar!" Duroh gasped. He took a step toward me, but thought better of it as the guard made a move forward.
Carruthers started to speak, but Tara's calm voice silenced him. "So even in your little expedition murder had to come." She seemed saying it not to us, but to herself. "Of course, what would one expect? Who was murdered?"
Her gaze was on me, and I told her what had happened and why we were here. There was a brief pause, and again she silenced Duroh and Carruthers.
"Zogg!" she called. "Zogg—come—"
From a glittering, blue-white vaulted doorway a figure approached—a big Zurian nearly my own height. The shining, opalescent light gleamed on his white bald pate. He looked a powerful fellow. A white fur-skin draped him. In his hand was a club-like weapon, seemingly made of the heavy slate-gray rock, sleekly polished to a knife-like edge.