"You'll have to excuse Max, we didn't know you were coming, of course. Just make yourselves at home. Young Jim Thornton arrived a short while ago. You'll be able to see him presently. You'll be hungry, of course. Max, bring some refreshment."
"Have many of us arrived?" Crystal asked anxiously.
"I'm sorry to say, very few. Just Jim Thornton and his party and you and Mr. Hanson."
Brian started. "How do you now know my name?" he asked in surprise.
"Oh, we've all heard of you, Mr. Hanson, and how you got Miss James out of Venus City. Brilliant work, I must say, and the way you routed the police in the caverns was truly a remarkable accomplishment. But—what made you come to this place? We've not been established here long."
"Grenville Carlton told us about it," Crystal said briefly.
"Carlton? Old Grenville. How is he?"
"He's dead." Crystal's face hardened to a white mask of hatred at the memory. "We found him impaled on a thorn bush in front of the ruins of his own house." Her words were brutally blunt with the tremendous surge of emotion behind them.
"Impaled ... tut tut tut ... my goodness, how terrible! Do you know who could have done it?"
"Yes. We found Carlton before he died. It was that rat Serono Zeburzac who killed him."