Outside, the sun was setting, already invisible behind a low-lying cloud. Bob calculated the designated time of their execution in relation to the Terran time as given by his watch and found that thirty-three twelve would be about halfway between daylight and sunrise.
Tal-Karanth stood by the open windows and watched the guards return the Terrans to their cell. Extra guards, both robot and Tharnarian, had been posted inside and outside the prison building for the night to prevent any possibility of an escape. Other robots stood guard around the Terran ship, although it was inconceivable that the Terrans could ever overpower the prison guards and reach their ship.
But it had been inconceivable that a ship as small as the Terran ship could ever destroy a Tharnarian guard cruiser. The tight-beam adaptation circuit of the meteor disintegrators was very ingenious.
Why had the Tharnarian cruisers not had the same weapon? They possessed the same general type of meteor disintegrators; the same adaptation circuit would transform a Tharnarian cruiser's meteor disintegrators into terrible weapons. Why had no one ever thought of doing such a thing? Why had it been taken for granted for fifty thousand years that the cruiser's blasters were the ultimate in weapons?
What other weapons did the Terrans on Earth possess? How invincible would their cruisers be if a small exploration ship could destroy a Tharnarian cruiser?
The captive Terrans could not be permitted to return to Earth and tell the others of Tharnar. Neither could they be permitted to live out their lives in prison on Tharnar. Someday, somehow, they might escape and return to Earth, or send a message to Earth. The robot fleet of Tharnar could never withstand an attack by a Terran fleet; the fate of Tharnar and the quiet and gentle City would be written in blood and dust and ashes.
There was the sound of rubber-padded metal feet in the distance and he saw six more robots marching out to add their numbers to the robots already guarding the Terran ship. The ship, itself, was not far from the Executive Building; close enough that his eyes, still sharp despite his seventy years, could make out the name on it: The Cat.
The Cat. And a cat was—he recalled the definition to be found among the Terran books—any of various species of carnivorous and predatory animals, noted for their stealth and quickness, and their ferocity when angered.