me with his twisted, ironic smile. "Have Rhadana make it a good one. You shall see the choosing of mates. And then comes your great honor—the first criminals to be put to death here. You will go down in history for that." He thumped his chest, on which now a miscellaneous collection of little pilfered ornaments were fastened, to denote his rank. "The history of Tork's New Empire—and I am writing it now. And tonight your names go in it."
A madman? Was he that? I stared at him. "Stop that!" he said sharply. "You—you—" As though a stab of terror had gone into him, under my stare. Then he turned. "I am busy with arrangements. I will come for you later."
The woman Rhadana—queerly incongruous in her voluptuous garb as she quietly moved about her tasks—was preparing us the evening meal. In a corner of the ramshackle room—its metal walls sloping, its thatched ceiling askew, with metal furniture and luxurious colorful drapes representing a dozen past ages—Blake sat with Doris. We knew we could not escape from here. The watchful guards outside were armed with weapons of what diabolic lethal power we could only imagine.
And suddenly the dark-cloaked Georg Allaire came in. His little instrument-case was under his cloak.
"I will give her her sight now," he murmured. "Only a few minutes with the facilities I have here." He was pale, intense, his eyes burning. "Have no fear—his vengeance will come on me—not her."
He led Doris, and young Blake with them, into an adjoining room. Just the simple removal of blighting, clinging spores.
I started with them, but abruptly Rhadana checked me.
"You—Bob—I am ready to talk now." Again she was breathless with her emotion. She swayed against me; her heavy, exotic perfume enveloped us. "You like me a little?" she murmured.
"Why—why of course, Rhadana."
"Because you are a man—of course. I will be Empress here. It was my idea—" She breathlesly paused. Her eyes darted like daggers—like the little jeweled dagger that suddenly her jeweled fingers were gripping. "My idea—I would like to have—you for my mate. The men would not mind—not with the promises I could give them." The mocking half smile played on her lips. "I have always been able to control men. I could—promise them much—"
"And Tork?" I murmured.
"Tork. To him will I attend—you need do nothing of that. He—can be killed. A stab—and the acid I have, to melt him apart. I know him—you see? He is—"
A faint cry from Doris made me whirl.
"Just hold still—just a minute," Blake's voice was saying with harrassed anxiety. "He won't hurt you, Dorrie—just a minute now—"
I RUSHED in to them; stood silent, breathless. Miracle of science of the year 5,000. Spores that could be killed with a gentle light-beam. . . .It was no more than the effort of a druggist, in my day, removing a cinder from a woman's eye.
"All right," Allaire said at last. "Now—I'll wash them out—and then the vapors—"
Doris, now with closed lids, stood trembling.
"You take her," Blake murmured to me. "Take her to the window."
I stood with her, holding her trembling body against me as she opened
