Week after week and month after month, Guyard had stood before the giant, had stood there hurling thought-waves into the brain, but to no avail. Something was wrong somewhere within the intricate mechanism, some trouble he could not locate.
Nervous and shaken, he stood there glaring into the expressionless eyes. There were but a scant two weeks left. Then the evil creatures from the Land of Darkness on the other side of the moon would come to claim Marene.
Desperation gave power to Guyard's tired brain. "Zurk!" His eyes blazed into the giant's with a final effort. "Move your head!"
For a brief instant, Guyard was certain that a feeble thought-wave had tried to penetrate his own brain; he thought he caught a faint glow in the eyes.
Then he wheeled quickly at the sound of a step upon the ladder up to the trap-door in the floor. His hand flashed to the gun at his belt, and he waited tensely.
His hand relaxed as the door swung slowly upwards and he saw dark curls and a smiling face. Marene. Marene, his daughter.
He went quickly to her, helped her up into the room and stood for a moment with his arms about her shoulders, holding her to him.
A crazy panorama of thoughts went through his head. He remembered the day of her birth aboard that ill-fated spaceship that had set out to colonize Mars. That was the same day the commander of the ship had reported engine trouble.
He remembered the first four years of her life aboard that helpless ship, the ship that had finally landed the thousand weary colonists on this moon of Jupiter's.
And then had come the creatures from the Land of Darkness to claim youth as a tribute from the helpless Earthians. Once every four years, they came to claim young men and women for some hideous experiment of theirs on the other side of the moon.