"They were outside?" Morgan demanded swiftly. "Out near where I found you? Is that what the parrot-thing tried to say?"
"Yes," she gasped. "Oh, who could it be? Other earthmen here? You—you said you came alone."
"I did. But I can make a pretty darn good guess who it is all right. Nada, listen!"
The ring of goths here were all eyeing Morgan suspiciously with weird, baleful eyes set in wrinkled, bluish, ape-like faces.
"Tell them I didn't do it," Morgan said hastily. "Tell them bad men did it, if they can manage to understand that much from you."
Would the damned growling things jump on him now? "Listen," he added swiftly to the girl. "That's a band of earthmen—space-pirates. They're here to try and steal the Zolonite I came after. Nada, where's that gun of mine you took away from me?"
"What—what are you going to do?" she stammered.
His eyes hardened.
"I don't want them to find you. Understand that!"
Morgan knew perfectly well what he was going to try to do—get the girl out of here, into his space-ship. Zolonite or not, he had no intention of trying to fight the space-pirates with this girl as the stake for success or victory.