"Tollgamo loves Peters' daughter?" Allen was murmuring.
"Yes. It is sure, although he would not have it known. And he is planning tonight, before we attack Arron, to—"
A dark figure near them suddenly materialized. For a second Allen thought that it was Leh. But it was Rhool! Rhool who doubtless had seen Garga coming here, and followed her.
In that tense second Allen was aware that Rhool was drawing a weapon. And Allen leaped, catapulted with lowered head. He caught Rhool in the stomach, knocked him backward. But the Gort's weapon had stabbed, a hiss of violet light. It missed Allen; struck Garga. She went down.
On the metal floor of the kiosk, Allen rolled with the giant Rhool. The Gort had no chance to use his weapon again. Allen in a second or two was on top of him, pounding his head against the metal floor. It cracked, and his big body quivered and lay limp.
Allen jumped up. He was aware of a commotion on the catwalk bridge. A running figure. And men back in the glare at the end of the street; men shouting, and then running forward. The figure on the catwalk was Leh. He came plunging into the kiosk. Allen was bending over the fallen Garga. She was dying, with bloody foam gushing at her mouth. But she was trying to smile, her eyes staring at Allen. Contrition swept him. This Amazonian woman-warrior.... Trained to be a cruel machine. But she had remained only a woman; and she was dying now; just a woman staring with her last wistful gaze at the Earthman she loved so that she might take the image of him with her into the Great Beyond.
Allen murmured: "Oh, Garga, I'm sorry."
She may have heard him, but then her breath stopped, the light went out of her eyes and she was gone.
Allen jumped up as Leh gripped him. Leh, with his face and figure changed now so that Allen saw him as a handsome stripling, with something of the look of Nereid.
"Come on," Leh gasped. "Get that helmet off, and that heavy cloak. Hurry!"