He led the way into the tunnel, sent a guard for Trent's weapons. Kimball Trent fitted them onto his shoulder and hip again, then strode down the tunnel at the side of his two guides.
"You spoke of breeding stations," he said as they walked. "What did you mean?"
Muscles knotted in Valur's jaws. "They are breeding stations," he said. "For almost five centuries the Gharrians have forced Earth to supply slaves for them. Great depots are made into slave camps, and the children born are carried in the crimson ships into space. We never see them again."
There was hate in Kimball Trent again, the surging twisting of emotions that had driven him in the days he had fought the monsters from infinity. It had lain dormant the last few days, stifled by his thoughts of the centuries he had slept, smothered by his fear that the world was dead and he alive. Now, knowing the way in which men lived on their planet, the hate came alive again, and he could feel the muscles of his body swelling against his harness.
"And nothing can be done?" he asked.
"Nothing!" Valur shook his head. "The Masters cannot be slain, and they hunt us like animals with their broks. We try now only to stay alive, praying for a miracle." His eyes swung to Trent. "It may be that you are that miracle."
Kimball Trent flushed, feeling helpless and naked and impotent. "We fought," he said, "and our weapons were of no avail. The men who might have devised new weapons are all dead, and I do not have the knowledge for manufacturing along new lines of thought."
The Elder's voice was gentle. "We shall win," he said. "We shall win eventually, for men were never meant to crawl as animals." His voice changed. "We shall call you 'Trent'," he finished, "and say that you are a Barb from Connet, for my people will not believe the tale you tell. Or if they did believe, they might think you a superman, and that would not be good."
The light of an entrance ahead came into view as they rounded a corner in the tunnel. They could hear voices; and the odors of cooking came on the faint breeze. Trent shivered suddenly. This was not the way that he thought the world would be. Never in even his wildest dreams had he thought Earth could be conquered. Now it was so, and the future was a hopeless thing, Earthmen fighting with feather-weapons against the invulnerable armor of the Gharrians.