Mason grinned. A Venusian's pain threshold was fantastically high; the Mordargans could torture Klon Darra for days without getting any essential information from him. But there were other methods.
Klon Darra said: They've sent for a telepath. Once they penetrate my mind they'll know why we're here. We'll both be cooked.
Don't worry, Mason telepathed. I'll be there with bells on.
There were occasional buildings now, he saw; the main bulk of Mordarga City lay up ahead, sprawling in a disorderly, confused fashion. The Mordargans, for all their neat precision of mind, cared little about the arrangement of their cities.
Mason saw some of the Mordargans now—husky brutes seven feet tall, square-shouldered and thick-muscled. They were gray-skinned with blazing white eyes and savage fangs; they diverged most sharply from the humanoid pattern in the pair of thick, stubby antenna sprouting from their heavy-browed foreheads.
Those antenna governed the extra Mordargan sense—the sense of balance, of perspective, of distance-judgment. It made them deadly in a hand-to-hand fight.
A couple of the Mordargans looked at him suspiciously but without overt antagonism. Earth and Mordarga were still theoretically at peace and Earthmen on Mordarga were, if not common, at least not totally unknown.
Mason kept his eyes to the ground and walked quickly past the Mordargans. They were a surly, unpredictable race; he didn't want any trouble with them now.
He tried a message to Klon Darra.
Hey, Venusian! How's it going?