Suddenly I saw Sharane break away out of a clinch and dash back, toward us, through the barrier. Peg followed on her heels, just a step behind.
Sharane must have dissolved the barrier she’d set up in order to let herself get through, but the maneuver turned out a flop, because Peg came right through with her. Sharane turned, glared angrily at her when she saw the strategy had been negated, and set out in a run—straight for the giant diamond!
“Go get her, Peg!” I shouted, almost breathless myself from the strain of watching the women fight while I myself was unable to move a muscle.
Sharane was climbing the diamond, pulling herself up by grasping the sharp corners of the facets, hauling herself up over that great shining eye. And Peg was right behind her.
I watched as Peg started the ascent, slipping and sliding, cutting her hands on the keen edges. Sharane was at the top, balanced precari-ously on the uppermost facet. The sun was beating down hard, shooting blinding flashes of light slashing off the diamond into our eyes.
As Peg approached the top, Sharane stooped and pushed her off. She went sliding back down, catching hold half way to the ground. I saw that she had ripped the leg of her slacks open, but she didn’t appear to be cut herself. She dangled for a moment and then with dogged determination she climbed her way back to the top. My heart pounded as frantically as if I were taking part in the struggle myself.
Sharane kicked out viciously. I saw Peg start to lose her grip, begin to fall back—and then seize Sharane’s flailing foot, and, holding on with an unbreakable grip, begin to haul herself to the top of the diamond!
She reached it at last, and the two of them stood here, rocking shakily back and forth in the narrow area, while the blazing sun burnt down fiercely on them, sending rivers of perspiration coursing down their bare flesh. They were locked in a double grip, shivering from exhaustion, neither one able to gain advantage over the other.
Then I saw Peg’s muscles flex, and she began to bend Sharane back, back, until the other woman was almost doubled over. Suddenly Sharane’s leg gave way, and she toppled; through some miracle, she landed on her back, still atop the diamond, and Peg pounced down on her. Peg clamped her hands on Sharane’s lovely throat, and started to squeeze.
Sharane’s arms began to thrash wildly—and then, then, as we watched dumfounded, Sharane began to change! As Peg kept up the relentless pressure, Sharane’s shape began to alter; arms became tentacles, skin thickened and became something else, changed color from radiant white to loathsome purple. Where there had been a lovely seductress a moment before lay a ghastly thing.
Peg jumped back, startled at the transformation; Sharane, or the thing that had been Sharane, lashed out with a tentacle, and Peg, still clinging to the other, toppled back and off the diamond, pinwheeling to the ground.
The Sharane-thing lost its balance and dropped off the other side. I saw Peg lying unconscious on the ground, watched in impotent horror as the alien being started to rise—
And suddenly I discovered I was free! My arm moved, my leg! Apparently the alien had needed all its power to fight Peg, and had been unable to spare the concentration needed to maintain our imprisonment.
I was up and running in an instant, feeling strength ebb back into my stiff, cramped muscles. I leaped on the monster before it could rise, felt its strange, dry, alien odor, and then my hands were around its scaly throat. I looked down, searched for some trace of the loveliness that had once tempted me, and could find none. I saw a weird, terrifying face with glinting many-faceted eyes and a twisted, agonized mouth. I kept up the pressure.
I heard the creature’s breath gasping out, and then I felt hands on my shoulders—Peg’s, on one shoulder, and a man’s hand, on the other.
I looked up and saw Strauss’ pudgy face. “Don’t kill the thing,” he said. “Get up, and let’s find out what’s been going on.”
“No,” I said. But they pulled me off.
I stood up, and watched the alien writhing on the ground, struggling to recover its breath. A surge of hatred ran through me as I saw the strange thing down there.
“What are you?” I demanded. “Where are we?”
“Give me some time,” it said, barely able to speak—but I could still detect in its voice the same underlying hypnotic tone that Sharane’s voice had had. It was the only point the thing had in common with the girl. “Let me recover. I mean no further harm.”
“I don’t trust it,” I said uneasily.
“Why not wait?” asked Strauss. “It can’t make any trouble for us now—obviously there has to be some kind of emotional surrender or it can’t take control of us. That must be how the girl was able to defeat it.”
I nodded. “That sounds reasonable.” I stared coldly down at the battered, suffering alien. “All right. Let’s let it catch its breath, and we’ll find out what’s what.”
I was glad, now, that they had pulled me off. Carried away the way I was, I would undoubtedly have throttled the creature—and the Chief would undoubtedly have throttled me for it when I got back—if I got back. For one thing, with the creature alive there was a chance we might find out what this was all about. For another, with the creature dead we might have no way of getting back to Earth.
So I stood back, letting the anger seep out of me, and turned to Peg.
She had come off on top in the fight, but she was pretty well battered. One of her lovely blue eyes had an even lovelier shiner, and she was thoroughly scratched and bruised. Her sweater was just about ripped clean off her, and she was holding the tatters together self-consciously.
“How did you get here?” I asked.
She smiled, and through all the blood and bruises it still looked wonderful.
“I went to the Chief, after you—disappeared.”
“I wish you hadn’t,” I said. “I didn’t want him to know I was letting you in on anything.”
“He doesn’t know. All I did was ask him to tell me what kind of job you had been sent out on. After I told him what had happened to you, he explained.”
“And then?”
“Then I requested that the next unused diamond that was found be turned over to me. He didn’t want to, but finally he agreed to it.”
I looked at the slowly twisting creature lying on the ground, and back to Peg. “So?”
“So another diamond materialized that night, and the Chief called me. I came and picked it up, and when I was alone I looked at it. There was that girl in it, calling to me.” She made a face. “It was disgusting.”
“And then you were drawn in?” I asked, remembering the way Sharane had trapped me.
“Of course not, silly. I didn’t respond to that posturing girl at all, and so I couldn’t be caught. But I voluntarily came through. I willed myself to be drawn in, and I was. I landed up in that jungle, and wandered out here when I saw the light of the diamond.”
I nodded. “And then Sharane came after you with her song and dance. Since Sharane was actually an alien with no real idea of the difference between the human sexes, she—it—thought her act would work on you too. But it didn’t.”
I walked over to where the alien was, and Peg and the six freed captives followed me. Sharane—the Sharane-thing—was sitting up.
“Hurry,” it said. “We must talk before the Llanar ship arrives, or there is great danger.”
“Who are the Llanar?” I asked, surprised.
“My captors,” said the alien. Its weird face was twisted into an expression of cosmic sadness.
“What do you mean, your captors?”
“The Llanar,” Sharane said, “are a great race from out there.” She gestured at the sky. “They conquered my people, and they wish to enslave yours through us. They have placed me here, against my will, and shown me how to disguise myself as a human. All who were drawn by the diamond were powerless against me—except—”