"You know the Khethlani doesn't like to lose men," one of the others reminded Gendron. "We ought to do everything we can to bring him under control."
Gendron nodded. "Untie his legs."
One of the men bent and unwrapped the thongs. Immediately Carter's foot lashed out in a vicious kick that sent the other away yelling.
Gendron slapped Carter twice. Then he said, "That proves it. He's definitely not under control. Let's take him to the Khethlani."
They shoved him roughly out of the room and down a long, winding corridor toward a distant door. As they pushed him along, Carter felt the itching inside his skull grow to fierce proportions, until he could hardly bear it. The faces of his three captors became oddly peaceful, oddly emotionless, as they drew near the door.
Gendron stepped forward and threw a switch. The door slid upward. Carter looked in—and saw the Khethlani.
It was a pulsing mass of protoplasm some twenty feet across, floating in a bath of some thick gray-green fluid that roiled obscenely beneath its bulk. A single great eye stared upward from the middle of the thing, and from the eye outward radiated corded blue bundles of nerve-cells that formed a web running through the creature's legless body.
This was the lair of the Khethlani. What dread secrets of injustice were hidden here?